"Largest Taiwan Air Incursion Yet, Again" Topic

China is once again upping the ante in their pressure campaign against the free and democratic island nation of Taiwan, a day after our US Sec. of State warned China against trying to invade Taiwan.

This time, 25 Chinese aircraft were involved in the operation, which is significantly larger than the previous one, which included 15 aircraft about a week or so ago.

Clearly, the political leadership of China isn't listening to our envoy.

They sent a mix of aircraft once again, no doubt training for future ops, should those be deemed necessary.

link

A pity we've destroyed all of those land-based, tactical nukes we used to have to help defend Europe from the Soviets, since I'll bet those could be rather handy to the island nation, if we were to loan some to them for a while.

I guess in the interim, we could send them a few squadrons of fighters to help with their air defense interceptions, and to send a stronger message of solidarity with the Taiwanese people.

We also have a Carrier Strike Group and an Amphibious Assault Carrier Group in the SCS, at the same time that China is conducting carrier ops with their Liaoning carrier in the SCS, and off Taiwan as well. The latter has had two to four escort vessels in tow, and a replenishment vessel too.

These forces could make for an interesting mix to set up skirmishes, or small battles in the region, if desired.

A Japanese destroyer was shadowing the Liaoning group when it transited through the Miyako Strait just south of Okinawa, and the Chinese have deployed their Type 022 missile boats to the South China Sea also. Vietnam and India are conducting coordinated naval ops in the SCS, or soon will be, and the USA is doing the same with the Phillipines also, though the latter does not have much in the way of military forces to contribute.

Well we and the (then) ChiNats used to do the same
thing 60 years ago. There were some air battles
over the N and S straits in which both sides lost
aircraft (none US) and pilots.

Not to mention the low altitude and high altitude
incursions over the mainland, both near-coastal and
much deeper into China flown, mostly, by the ChiNats.

Yep, I recall reading about some of those.

Seems like they lost quite a few U-2s back in the day.

against the free and democratic island nation of Taiwan

You do realise even the US doesn't acknowledge Taiwan (or Republic of China as its formaly known) as a sovereign state?

You also realise that the Taiwanese officially regard themselves part of China – their official name is Republic of China and they are the remnant of Chang Kai Shek's National Chinese government.

Taiwan has never declared independence nor is it recognised as such by the UN.

This is important as it gives the US a very easy out and it also impacts the next quote.

I guess in the interim, we could send them a few squadrons of fighters to help with their air defense interceptions, and to send a stronger message of solidarity with the Taiwanese people.

Whereas this was plausible up to 1970s when Republic of China was the recognised government of China, it becomes extremely difficult now.

Last time US deployed combat forces including fighter squadrons to Taiwan was 1970s (last fighter rotation of F-4 Phantoms was in 1975). In fact US maintained a permanent military presence in Taiwan up to 1979.

Once relations were normalised with PRC in 1979, any residual US troops were withdrawn.

Even from a US legal perspective, deploying combat assets to Taiwan would be a violation of Chinese sovereignty.

It's why the preferred US asset here is the USN – the Taiwan Strait is a recognised international strait which means freedom of passage for ships.

A USN carrier group in the strait thus does not violate Chinese sovreignty whereas deployment of fighters to Taiwan does. Alas weapons development and Chinese military modernisation also means a USN carrier group in the Strait is also probably 6,000+ Americans sent to a watery grave even if the Chinese military is even a quarter of what analysts think they are.

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Noteworthy is that the US sold Republic of China out in the 1970s. This was done because PRC was an enemy of to USSR and because greedy Americans saw China as a very useful source of cheap labour.

If the US continued its pre-Nixon policy, then Taiwan would be fine (and PRC would still be an economic backwater).

But the US keeps making same stupid mistake of empowering "enemies of our enemies" and it keeps backfiring be it Islamist extremists or PRC or now India with its grand designs on the whole Indian Ocean.

To be clearer- the one China policy works because the PRC considers the ROC an offshoot of China and the Roc considers the PRC to be an offshoot of Taiwan. You see both think that they will someday re-unify with each other.

It's a convenient lie that allowed the US and China to both come to an agreement over a single policy.

To state it simply as Taiwan considers themselves an offshoot of China is a fairly misleading interpretation.

Rightly or wrongly, China is f'ing evil. I don't understand why anyone supports China while the Uighers are in camps and being forcefully eradicated, China forces organ harvesting amongst the Uighers and prison population and Hong Kong and Tibet are suppressed. They may be taking over the world, but since when did we all have to sit back and accept that?

I say that as someone who has been to China and done business in China. I bare no malice to the Chinese people, but their government is the worst the world has seen since the 20th Century. What's with all the happy appeasement by governments and corporations alike?

[QUOTE]They may be taking over the world, but since when did we all have to sit back and accept that?[/QUOTE]

Of course we don't but the west does and has been acquiescing to China since Nixon's visit in 1971.

My main point was that the legal fictions relating to Taiwan make western intervention politically complicated and actually give the west an easy way out.

The truth is money and flow of consumer goods is all that matters to people, corporations and governments alike in the 21st century. And as outsourced manufacturing to China then that makes them far more important than democracy or the lives of 20+ million Taiwanese.

The truth is money and flow of consumer goods is all that matters to people, corporations and governments alike in the 21st century.

Yep ! It's all about the $ 💰💴💵💶💷💸💳

Thresher, I don't know what 'quite a few' means, as
a quantity.

I know of ONE. If you have info on more, I'd like to
know of it. That ONE was over 3 years after Powers
was downed by the Soviets.

Following the ONE, ChiNat flown missions were cancelled.

Ed, the U-2s and RB-69s were technicwlly flown by RoCAF.

Chicoms shotdown 5 U-2s as well as 3 RB-69 Neptunes.

RoCAF U-2 losses (stolen data from Wikipedia):

September 9, 1962: U-2C N.378 – Major Chen Huai (killed)

November 1, 1963: U-2C N.355 – Major Yeh Changti (captured, released in 1982), shot down by Yue Zhenghua and his Second Battalion

July 7, 1964: U-2G N.362 – Lt. Colonel Lee Nanpin (killed), shot down over Fujian by Yue Zhenghua and his Second Battalion

January 10, 1965: U-2C N.358 – Major Chang Liyi (captured, released in 1982), shot down over Baotou by Wang Lin and his First Battalion

September 8, 1967: U-2C[26] N.373 – Captain Huang Jungpei (killed), shot down over Jiaxing by Xia Cunfeng and the 14th Battalion, first success by a Chinese-made surface-to-air missile

Interesting. I was stationed in T'aiwan 1962-64 in
an Intel billet. The unit had details of incursions
and, to an extent, imagery and electronic intel
results.

No clue as to the details of the 1967 and 1965
incidents.

As to the others – 1963 yes. The 1964 U2/G incident:
given that the G's were a variant designed with
tailhooks to be used in carrier operations (testing
began in 1964 in USS Ranger) don't know what to say
about that, save that my unit knew nothing about it
and should have done. Only 3 G's were ever made
AFAIK.

The other two – well, anyone can update wiki, eh ?

Wiki quotes the following book:

link

Scramble lists following U-2s as serving with ROCAF. Mil means change of identity in this instance (either via transfer or via re-serialling).

Last digits in format XX-XXXX are USAF serials.

U-2F 342 to USA Mil as 56-6675 USA 56-6675
… U-2C 351 Written Off w/o 19mar61 USA 56-6684
… U-2C 352 Written Off w/o 22oct65 USA 56-6685
… U-2A 355 35sq Written Off w/o 01nov63 USA 56-6688
… U-2A 356 Written Off w/o 23mar64 USA 56-6689
… U-2F 359 to USA Mil as 56-6692 USA 56-6692
… U-2F 372 Written Off w/o 17feb66 USA 56-6705
… U-2A 378 35sq Written Off w/o 09sep62 USA 56-6711
… U-2F 383 to USA as 56-6716 USA 56-6716
… U-2F 384 Written Off w/o 21jun66 USA 56-6717
… U-2G 385 to USA Mil as 56-6718 USA 56-6718
… U-2R 053 to USA Mil as 68-10331 USA 68-10331
… U-2R 057 Written Off w/o 24nov70 USA 68-10335
… U-2 Written Off w/o 22mar66
… U-2 Written Off w/o 16may69
3512 U-2C 358 Fuxing Lu – Beijing Preserved May 1994 Mar 2012 museum USA 56-6691
3512? U-2B 373 Written Off w/o 08sep67 USA 56-6706
3520 U-2G 362 35sq Written Off w/o 07jul64 USA 56-6695
3920 U-2 Written Off w/o
3922 U-2
3925 U-2R
3925 U-2R 051 to USA Mil as 68-10329 USA 68-10329
3926 U-2
N801X U-2G 348 to USA Mil as 56-6681

As long as the flow of High quality plastic miniatures continues, I am happy.

I need one of these in 1/600th scale, in metal.