Taiwan is increasingly subject to so-called “gray zone warfare” techniques from China, designed to wear down Taiwan’s resources and morale. Those techniques include cyber attacks, amphibious landing exercises and, most common of all, military flights near Taiwan’s airspace.
China on Sunday sent fighter jets into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). That marked the third day in a row China made incursions into the area. Sunday’s maneuver saw 19 planes fly into Taiwan’s ADIZ, the most since China sent 28 planes through on June 15. Included in the formation were anti-submarine aircraft, bombers, and fighters.
Taiwan swiftly scrambled its own jets to intercept and track the Chinese forces using surface to air missile systems.
National Policy Foundation Researcher Chieh Chung says that the incursions are because of increased exchanges between Taiwan and the US. He says Taiwan’s warming relations with the US have brought the Taiwan Strait issue into the global spotlight, something that China doesn’t like. Chieh says China’s increased activity could also be down to a recent speech by Tsai Ing-wen. President Tsai called China a “neighboring country,” in a recent address—something that implies Taiwan and China are separate states.
However, Chieh says a closer inspection of the plane formation suggests that Sunday’s maneuvers weren’t an outright gesture of hostility. He says that the planes that flew into Taiwan’s ADIZ did not form a complete attack squad, meaning that the maneuver may simply have been a routine exercise.