The Chinese air force flew roughly 40 military planes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, the largest platoon to do so dating back to an October offensive.
There were 24 J-16 fighter jets, 10 J-10 jets, two Y-9 transport aircraft, two Y-8 anti-submarine warning aircraft, and one nuclear-capable H-6 bomber among the group of 39 aircraft that participated in the incursion, its Ministry of National Defense announced on Sunday.
In response, the Taiwanese military issued radio warnings, while it also deployed its air defense missile system to monitor the situation.
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The Chinese government maintains that Taiwan is a part of the mainland, while the Taiwanese consider themselves an independent country. The United States has provided Taiwan support to prevent a Chinese attack, but the relationship has been unofficial since Washington formalized relations with China.
The Chinese Communist Party has utilized aggressive military tactics in recent years in demonstrations displaying its willingness to use force.
Back in October, the Chinese military deployed 56 helicopters to encroach upon Taiwan’s ADIZ in what was the largest number of same-day incursions amid a push that amounted to nearly 150 such occurrences within a four-day period. There was another incident about a month later with roughly half the number of aircraft.
This time, however, came a day after the U.S. and Japanese navies put together a flotilla in the Philippine Sea. There were two U.S. Navy aircraft destroyers, two U.S. amphibious assault ships, two U.S. guided-missile cruisers, five destroyers, and a Japanese helicopter destroyer, according to CNN.
“Freedom at its finest! Nothing reaffirms our commitment to a #FreeandOpenIndoPacific like 2 Carrier Strike Groups, 2 Amphibious Ready Groups sailing alongside our close friends from the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force,” Vice Adm. Karl Thomas, commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet based in Japan, said in a tweet.
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The Pentagon has repeatedly described China as the U.S. military’s “pacing challenge” and is planning for a possible conflict with the adversarial nation.
“The PRC is the Department of Defense’s pacing challenge, and a Taiwan contingency is the pacing scenario,” Assistant Secretary of Defense Ely Ratner, the lead Pentagon official for the Indo-Pacific, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a hearing last month. “We are modernizing our capabilities, updating U.S. force posture, and developing new operational concepts accordingly.”
