"Largest Chinese Incursion Yet into Taiwan's ADIZ" Topic

The Chinese keep upping the ante vs. Taiwan, with 20 aircraft intruding into their Air Defense Identification Zone:

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In addition, apparently they're also conducting a "military exercise" in the South China Sea, and have announced that the waters between Hainan Island and the Paracels are closed too.

Makes me wonder when they'll just say the whole SCS is closed to non-Chinese maritime traffic.

I'll guess if nobody complains after this round they can consider it theirs.

I think they're trying to gauge what the Biden Administration is going to do. The Chinese have a lot to lose by an attack on Taiwan in terms of not only material losses (ships, aircraft, soldiers, etc.), but catastrophic economic sanctions, so that is a last resort. What they would like to do is what is happening with the Philippines, namely taking over their industry and turning them into a fully fledged province of China. If the U.S. isn't going to come to their aid, they'll keep the pressure up in the hopes of making some kind of arrangement with Taiwan, perhaps similar to Hong Kong.

Yes, and that is not good for Taiwan.

Apparently, the Chinese are also building a very large helo base on the other side of the strait, close to the coast, and they have enough Mi-17s to carry more than 10,000 troops in one go, should they decide to do that, not counting dropping paratroopers from aircraft as well.

From the article: " Hong Kong disciplined services to ditch British marching in favour of Chinese ‘goose-step' at National Security Education Day events"

What's with totalitarian regimes and their obsession with the ‘goose-step'?

This large scale ADIZ violation sets a new precedent. It can only get worse if there are no consequences.

Of course there will be consequences- there will be a great deal of short lived hand wringing, and wide scale kvetching and tsk tsking.

Taiwan isn't part of the national narrative being pushed right now, so it won't matter here in the US.

USAFpilot. --I have often stated that I automatically distrust any nation that have their military goose -stepping !!

Russ Dunaway

China, Russia, and Iran are fast forming alliances. A good little short vid about it.

youtu.be/9wPjEjz7RoM

Here's an interesting little fact – Taiwan ADIZ actually extends into mainland China. In fact a third of it is over mainland China.

Though these PLAAF jets are flying over the US acknowledged demarcation line in the middle of Taiwan Strait.

I do wonder if Taiwan does sometimes report flights in their ADIZ over mainland China just to ham up the situation especially as most Chinese bases near Taiwan don't have permanent assignments of fighters or attack aircraft (only 1 regiment (brigade) present with 24 J-10s).

This report shows how messy the whole ADIZ business is. Eg Japan has been encroaching on Taiwanese ADIZ, South Korea's been extending theirs and now overlaps with Japan and China (the dotted green line).

In fact South Korea pushed their ADIZ far south in 2013 due to the fact they claim a submerged rock in their EEZ.

And an ADIZ is not airspace. It's in fact over international airspace. You can't shoot someone down because they're flying in international airspace just because you think you have a right to identify "intruders."

Further to my theory that Taiwan might occasionally (but not all the time) ham up ADIZ "violations" to include flights in mainland China.

Chinese air force has 9 coastal air bases opposite Taiwan that would come under Taiwanese ADIZ. China's navy has none in the region.

The 9 PLAAF bases are:

Shantou/Waisha – 25th Air Brigade (regiment sized) with about 24 J-10Cs

Longtian – no permanent aircraft. Equipped to handle full fighter regiment.

Yangtang Li – no permanent aircraft. Equipped to handle H-6 bombers.

Zhangzhou – no permanent aircraft. Equipped to handle full fighter regiment.

Quanzhou/Jinjiang Intl – no permanent aircraft. Can handle attack aircraft.

Luocheng/Huian – no permanent aircraft. Can handle a squadron of fighters.

Fuzhou – J-6 target drones. Equipped to handle full fighter regiment.

Xiapu – no permanent aircraft. Equipped to handle full fighter regiment.

Liangcheng – J-6 target drones. Equipped to handle full fighter regiment.

Thus as Taiwan claims an ADIZ over mainland China, does it count rotational deployments of aircraft from out of the ADIZ to mainland Chinese bases as a breach of ADIZ?!?

Oh and some other interesting facts:

US does not recognise Bohai Sea as Chinese despite it being surrounded by China on 3 sides and not having any other boundary with any other country.

US does not recognises 30 km wide Hainan/Qiongzhou Strat between mainland China and Chinese island of Hainan as Chinese. Bizarre given sovereignty is meant to extend 12 nm (22 km) from your coast. So 22 km from mainland China and 22 km from Hainan Island means the sovereignty overlaps.

link

Bohai Sea

Hainan/Qiongzhou Strait (30 km wide)

- You can see according to this map, US 1972 baseline doesn't recognise Chinese sovereignty over even chunks of its own coastline. This has not been updated since 1972.

In both cases if these were classed as international waters, Chinese sovereignty would be heavily compromised especially as Hainan Island is a major nuclear submarine base whilst access Bohai Sea would give US unprecedented power to get very close to Chinese capital of Beijing (especially ELINT/SIGINT vessels and aircraft).

Indeed US occasionally enters the Bohai Sea or even tries to overfly it.

link

Maybe the US has a bargaining chip here – give Chinese recognition over the Bohai Sea and Hainan Strait whilst getting them to withdraw claims in SC Sea (Taiwan is a bit harder).

You can't shoot someone down because they're flying in international airspace just because you think you have a right to identify "intruders."

The old Soviets/Russians, and many, many American aircrewmen, some of whom did not return from their missions in international airspace, and over international waters, would beg to differ with you on that point.

Crews and passengers on several civilian airliners, and their friends and families would also.

Most of the incursions of late that Taiwan is/has been complaining about have been over the dividing line between China and Taiwan, and NOT merely aircraft taking off, or flying over mainland China.

Thresher,

Oh well aware of shootdowns in international airspace though many shootdowns were in Soviet or Chinese airspace. Indeed PRC has a wrecked U-2 they shot down on display.

I don't dispute Chinese aircraft are violating the dividing line, merely that I do wonder if they have used the ADIZ over China at times for political points.

Radar tracks are pretty good evidence here though I haven't seen any (nor have bothered to search for them).