China Puts On Major Show of Force Around Neighbor

China's forces flexed their air muscles around neighboring Taiwan on Wednesday, sending 20 mostly manned aircraft into the island's air defense zone, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in a daily report.

The military aircraft were among 32 detected near Taiwan proper in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. on Thursday, according to Taipei, which also revealed that a suspected Chinese drone had probed one of the island's best kept secrets during a long-range patrol.

Newsweek's map shows the borders of Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ), which it says have been violated on a near-daily basis since the autumn of 2020 as part of the political fallout from the Trump administration's decision to dispatch Cabinet-level officials to Taipei.

Also illustrated is the Taiwan Strait's median line, a tacit buffer that for decades had kept the old Cold War foes from close encounters. Beijing says it has never recognized it, and its forces now regularly cross it.

A dozen fighter aircraft and drones were detected west of the median line, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said, while 19 crewed attack and support aircraft operated in the southwestern sector of Taiwan's air defense zone.

China—along with neighboring South Korea, Japan and the Philippines—all maintain their own air defense zones, designated areas in which a country requires passing aircraft, military or civilian, to identify themselves. The zone is not considered territorial airspace, and failure to comply is not considered a violation under international law.

Five Chinese naval vessels were also detected around the island, Taipei said, although their relative positions were not disclosed. Taiwan responded by deploying combat air patrols, warships and coastal air defense systems, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said.

One unspecified Chinese drone circled southern Taiwan on the day in a long-distance sortie that brought it as close as 44 nautical miles from eastern Hualien county, according to Taipei's map.

Hualien is home to Taiwan's Chiashan air base, thought to be one of the island's most closely guarded secrets because of its extensive underground hangars—crucial to surviving a likely pre-invasion missile barrage before Taipei can launched its own counterattack.

The base's continued importance has been the subject of some debate in recent years given the Chinese military's growing ability to project power beyond the so-called first island chain, conceivably allowing Beijing to attack from more advantageous positions in the Western Pacific.

Taiwan does not typically see Chinese warplane sorties as an immediate national security threat until they cross the Taiwan Strait's center line. Taipei's defense chief Chiu Kuo-cheng reiterated this month that his forces would be permitted to open fire if Beijing's planes—manned or not—crossed into Taiwan's territorial airspace, which extends 12 nautical miles from the coast.

The Chinese government claims the democratically governed island as its own and says the pointed maneuvers only target Taipei's political leadership, which rejects Beijing's claims of sovereignty over the island.

The United States is Taiwan's strongest international backer but has had no formal diplomatic ties with Taipei for over four decades. American forces, however, have maintained a regular presence around the island as part of Washington's commitment to its security and its desire to see cross-strait differences resolved by peaceful means.

The Chinese military's 20 sorties into Taiwan's air defense zone on March 20 was the highest single-day total of the year, according to the PLATracker website. It was only the 10th time this year that sorties on a given day had reached double figures, its database shows.

Since September 2020, the Chinese military has flown over 5,000 sorties into Taiwan's air defense zone, including 86 last month and 71 in January, both down from their year-on-year equivalents for 2023—although March and April are likely to see a surge in line with annual springtime exercises.