China doubles number of air strikes against Taiwan in 2022

China has almost doubled the number of incursions with fighter planes against Taiwan’s air defense zone in 2022, the year in which it brutally increased military pressure on the autonomous island it considers its own.

According to the database of the French news agency AFP, fed by daily updates from the Ministry of Defense of Taipei, 1,727 Chinese aircraft were sent towards the neighbor, passing through the Taiwanese Adiz (English acronym for Air Defense Identification Zone).

In 2021, there were 960, a number in turn two and a half times higher than the notifications in 2020, which totaled 380.

Military movement data illustrate the political change in Beijing in recent years, with the increasingly assertive regime led by Xi Jinping seeking to make it clear that it is willing to take the island by force, even though it says its priority is a peaceful reintegration.

Last year, the data was heavily influenced by the peak of the year’s tension: the visit of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taipei. From there, the regime of military exercises and Chinese incursions around the island is almost permanent.

In August alone, the month of Pelosi’s visit, there were 440 incursions. The largest air mobilization in the history of the China-Taiwan conflict, which dates back to the flight of the defeated leadership from the 1949 communist revolution to the island, took place on December 25-26, when 71 aircraft were in the air — more than half of them crossing the virtual border between territories, which is not measured in the AFP base.

When that happens, and also on occasions when the trajectory of fighters, bombers and reconnaissance planes suggests a line heading straight for the island, Taiwan is obliged to send interceptor aircraft.

According to military observers, the cost to deploy 1 of its 150 F-16s that are usually used for the mission is equivalent to R$140,000 per hour, leading to astronomical expenses in the island’s ever-expanding military budget. In addition, the activity wears down the devices.

That’s where the United States, guarantor of the Taipei regime, comes in. The December incursion was precisely a response to the approval of the American defense budget by Congress, with the forecast of supplying US$ 10 billion in weapons, such as new fighter jets, to the Taiwanese in five years.

It is a clear example of American ambiguity. Since 1979, when it recognized Communist China, Washington has also accepted the principle that there is only one country with that name. Indeed, it never supported Taiwan’s independence claim, which is only recognized by 13 countries.

At the same time, he established military cooperation mechanisms to dissuade the Chinese from invading the territory — most importantly, the promise that the US would enter a war on the side of the island. From time to time, a more overt political gesture like Pelosi’s visit, unheard of for someone in his role in 25 years, escalates tensions.

The general tone, however, has changed since 2017, when Donald Trump launched the Cold War 2.0 with the Chinese in the commercial field, which spread to every possible contentious border, from Hong Kong’s autonomy to handling the pandemic, from the sale of microchips to freedom navigation in the Indo-Pacific.

Taiwan found itself at the center of the clash, and its army claims that by 2024 China will be technically ready for an invasion. The effective air-naval blockade rehearsed in the wake of Pelosi’s visit already hints at the plan.

In the West, Vladimir Putin’s China-Russia alliance, which is not formally military but has a strong defense component, has raised fears that Xi would draw inspiration from the Ukraine War to attack Taiwan.

US President Joe Biden himself has warned the Chinese leader not to take this course. Nothing happened, but the frenzy of Chinese planes and ships around the territory shows that the rhetoric has an echo in practice.

On New Year’s Eve, for example, 24 fighters and bombers were deployed in an exercise captured in Adiz, and 15 of them crossed the so-called median line over the Taiwan Strait.

Adiz is an area where air forces require the identification of aircraft, civil or military, considering that from then on they represent some danger. About 20 countries have them, and many overlap, such as Taiwan, China and South Korea.

It is not, however, formal airspace, or informal in the case of half-recognized Taipei. In it, if there is an invasion, the rules of engagement provide for escort, alert, warning shot and slaughter, in a growing ladder.

In 2022, there was heavy fighter activity from Beijing: of the 1,727 planes mobilized, 1,241 were of the type. In 2021, there were 538 takeoffs. Bomber raids, usually H-6Ks capable of using nuclear weapons, increased from 60 to 101.

A novelty was the debut of drones in this count. There have been 71 sorties with these unmanned models, all since Pelosi’s provocative visit.

This has spread: on Sunday (1st) and on Monday (2nd), Japan sent fighter jets to intercept flights of Chinese WZ-7 high-altitude reconnaissance drones, considered the largest of their kind in the world.