The One China policy that considers Taiwan a part of China is slowly being brought to practical fruition.
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- October provocation: On October 1st, China's national day, China flew 38 aircraft, including fighter jets and bombers, towards Taiwan. They entered the island’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ), a buffer region where intrusions often prompt military alerts. It was the year’s daily record. Over the next three days China sent another 111 planes. In response, Taiwan scrambled jets, broadcast warnings and tracked the Chinese aircraft with missile systems.
- Not crossing a limit: So far none of the flights has crossed into Taiwan’s territorial airspace, which extends 12 nautical miles (about 22 km) from the island. The intruders fly 35 nautical miles or more from the Taiwanese coast. On October 6th America’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, called on China to halt its “provocative” activity near Taiwan. Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, conveyed America’s concern at a meeting in Switzerland with Yang Jiechi, China’s most senior diplomat and a member of the ruling Politburo.
- China does not care: However, China is unabashed, and calls the sorties as a demonstration of the country’s ability to conduct “a wartime air attack”. China has been ratcheting up displays of its growing military capability, especially at sea and in the air, as a warning to Taiwan. Its message is that if the island refuses to accept China’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan, China may use force. Perhaps by 2025, it may launch an attack.
- Daily: China now conducts such flights near southern Taiwan almost every day. They could be intended to wear down Taiwan’s defences (its air force is much smaller than China’s) and condition it into treating big sorties as normal in order to make it easier for China to disguise the early phase of an attack as an exercise. Assessing China’s intentions is extremely difficult.
- In September, Taiwan sought entry to a trans-Pacific free-trade group just after China had made the same request and American and British naval ships sailed through the Taiwan Strait.
- On September 15th America, Britain and Australia agreed to a security partnership, AUKUS, that is viewed in Beijing as an alliance aimed at keeping China in check. In the days that followed, China ramped up its flights into Taiwan’s ADIZ.
- When will Taiwan react: If China’s planes were to edge closer to airspace over the island itself, it is unclear how Taiwan would respond. Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s president, has said that Taiwanese pilots should not be the ones to shoot first—at least not without explicit orders.
- Taiwan may have divided its airspace into three zones of engagement: a “surveillance zone” of 30 nautical miles, a “warning zone” of 24 nautical miles and a “destruction zone” of 12 nautical miles.
- If any engagement were to lead to the death of a pilot, even accidentally, “both sides would be ill-equipped” to keep tensions under control.
- There has been no such casualty since 1958. But accidents have happened nearby. In 2001 a mid-air collision off the coast of southern China between a Chinese fighter and an American naval spy-plane killed the Chinese pilot. The crippled American plane landed at a Chinese military airbase. Ten days of tension ensued before the crew were allowed to leave.
- Today, such an encounter may be far harder to resolve. Relations between America and China are considerably worse. China suspended official contacts with Taiwan after Ms Tsai became president in 2016 and she failed to endorse the view of leaders in Beijing that there is only “one China”.
- Jingoism all the way: Global Times, a jingoistic party tabloid in Beijing, declared in April that if Ms Tsai’s government were to continue its “hostile” behaviour (working closely with America counts as such, it suggested), China’s fighter planes would be prepared to fly across the island and disregard the “red line” relating to territorial airspace. Ms Tsai warned that people in Taiwan will “rise up should the very existence of Taiwan be under threat”.
- EXAM QUESTIONS: (1) Comment on the evolution of Taiwan's security strategy, in light of China's hyper-aggression. (2) What are the various ways China is causing trouble across South China Sea? Analyse.
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