China’s Jets Are Pushing Closer And Closer To Taiwan

The Chinese air force on Monday flew fighter jets across the unofficial line that divides the Taiwan Strait into separate Chinese and Taiwanese zones.

Taiwanese forces intercepted and “drove out” the Chinese planes. But Beijing by then had made its point. The Chinese Communist Party is raising the stakes in the decades-long cold war between China and Taiwan.

The Chinese incursion wasn’t random. It was a calculated response to a visit to Taiwan by Alex Azar, the U.S. health secretary. Azar landed in Taiwan on Sunday as part of the highest-level American delegation to the island country in decades.

Chinese air force J-10 and J-11 fighters reportedly crossed the Taiwan Strait median line as Azar was meeting with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen at around 9:00 in the morning, local time.

Xu Guangyu, a senior adviser to the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, told Global Times that Azar’s visit was a serious provocation. The government-owned Global Times and the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association both are Chinese Communist Party mouthpieces.

The strait is just 90 miles wide at its narrowest point. The unofficial median line cuts roughly along its middle, meaning Chinese pilots had to fly as few as 50 miles out in order to make their point—a journey of mere minutes. The Chinese fighters probed the southwest sector of Taiwan’s Air-Defense Identification Zone.

Taiwanese air-defense radars tracked the Chinese fighters, probably from the moment they took off. “In addition to broadcasting a warning, our reconnaissance and patrol aircraft were in full control throughout the course and drove the [Chinese] fighter jets out of our air space,” the Taiwanese defense ministry announced.

It’s unclear what fighter types Taiwan sortied to intercept the Chinese jets. During previous Chinese incursions in the same area, F-16s based in southern Taiwan have flown out to meet the interlopers.

China for decades mostly respected the median. That changed in March 2019, when Chinese planes briefly crossed the line. It’s happened again several times. During one February incursion, a Chinese J-11 fighter escorting an H-6 bomber locked its radar onto a Taiwanese F-16.