Taiwan Reports Chinese Military Pressure On Their Airspace

Photo illustration (Sigg Sebastian / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Taiwan fighter aircraft traffic is much busier. This year Taiwan reported having launched more than twice as many warplanes to secure its territory from Chinese aircraft.

Taiwan's Ministry of Defense stressed this to illustrate China's increasing security challenges. In a copy of the report submitted to parliament the ministry explained that the air force had flown at least 4,132 warplanes. That figure is up 129 percent from last year.

"China is trying to use unilateral military action to change the security status quo in the Taiwan Strait. And at the same time testing our response, increasing pressure on our air defenses and shrinking our space for activity," reads the report quoted by Reuters on Tuesday, October 6. .

The ministry also warned the country about China's rapid military development. Not only that. The developments also increased military action against Taiwan.

Beijing has acknowledged increasing military activity in Taiwan. They call it an effort to protect their own sovereign territory. In China's eyes, democratic Taiwan is part of their territory. China has also criticized US support for Taiwan which it calls the "Taipei-Washington plot.

In recent weeks, Chinese fighter jets have traveled back and forth across the centerline of the Taiwan Strait, an area of water that used to serve as an official inter-island or mainland buffer. The Chinese pilots' flight was quite long. They even touched the defense identification zone.

China has said it is furious about increasing US support for Taiwan, including a visit by senior US officials to the island which has escalated tensions between China and the US. Meanwhile Taiwan cannot compete numerically with China's armed forces.

Leader Tsai Ing-wen has overseen a military modernization program aimed at making the island's armed forces more agile and Taiwan more difficult to attack.

At a Taiwan-US defense conference Monday evening, October 5, Deputy Defense Minister Chang Guan-chung said China had stepped up what he called "realistic training against Taiwan."

"We develop systems that are small, multiple, intelligent, hidden, fast, agile, low cost, resilient, effective, easy to develop, maintained and preserved, and difficult to detect and fight," he said.

Chang called for increased cooperation with the US that goes beyond arms sales, saying it would further strengthen Taiwan's defense reforms and military modernization.

"We will also emphasize joint efforts in training, operational concepts, capability assessment, intelligence sharing and weapons cooperation. This is as important as hardware acquisition, ”he said.