China sends more than three dozen warplanes in skies near Taiwan in largest incursion yet

[Omaha Steve]

Source: CNN

By Eric Cheung and Brad Lendon,

Taipei, Taiwan (CNN)China sent 38 warplanes into the skies around Taiwan on Friday, the highest number of Chinese military aircraft to breach the island's Air Defense Identification Zone in a single day since Taipei began publicly reporting such activities last year, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said Friday night.

The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) aircraft came in two waves, the Defense Ministry said.

Twenty-five PLA warplanes entered the southwestern corner of the ADIZ during daylight hours, and another 13 planes entered the island's southwest ADIZ on Friday night, the ministry said in a statement.

While the Chinese planes in the afternoon sortie stayed in the extreme southwestern part of the ADIZ, the planes involved in the evening flight flew through the defense zone and hooked up toward the northeast before reversing course and returning to the Chinese mainland, the Defense Ministry said.



A Chinese J-16 multirole strike fighter for the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) is shown at the 13th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai on September 28.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/01/asia/china-taiwan-warplane-incursion-record-intl-hnk-ml/index.html

[yaesu]

1. They probable waited to see if their comrades, the repukes, would weaken the US further with a debt

default before pulling this stunt but the true American Democratic party beat them back, for now.

[Submariner]

2. What a coincidence the Chinese J-16 Strike Fighter looks so much like the U.S. F-18 Hornet

if we didn't know better, you'd almost think the Chinese are stealing the intellectual property related to U.S. military technology secrets.

[cstanleytech]

7. Well they do have a history of doing it but to be fair there are only so many ways to design

a stealth airplane currently.

[EX500rider]

15. In this case it is a rip off of the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker

In the 1990s, China purchased Sukhoi Su-27 air superiority fighters from Russia, including those license-produced in China as the Shenyang J-11A.[5] The J-11A was further developed into the J-11B single seat and BS twin seat variant with indigenous technology. The J-16 is a strike aircraft derived from the J-11BS model.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-16

[Lasher]

20. Good find!

[DFW]

3. Bejing has wanted Taiwan back ever since Chiang separated it after 1949.

The governments in Beijing have never seriously though of a military solution to their territorial claim because the thought that the USA would defend Taiwan with a full military response was reason enough not to try to get their way by force. I doubt they still think that.

Besides, Beijing is locating, claiming, and building up every uninhabited atoll they can find anywhere in the western Pacific in to military bases, and then claiming them to be Chinese territory. At some point, Taiwan will be so surrounded by "Chinese territory" that they will find themselves "within it" to all intents and purposes. At this point, the claim that they are Chinese territory will be much harder to refute in Beijing's eyes. If Beijing is willing to use force to annex Taiwan, and we aren't willing to go to war over the issue, it will be up to the Taiwanese to decide for themselves how much destruction they want to endure (if any) before capitulating. Beijing, of course, doesn't want to have to use force at all, since it will be upon them to rebuild "their" territory after any war.

Two things are clear. First is that Taiwan, under the present circumstances, will put up a fierce resistance to any attempt to annex them by force. Second is that they will lose such a fight, although not before inflicting horrible casualties on Beijing's forces, and maybe even a few missiles on Beijing itself. Will Beijing care? About as much as Putin cared what the world thought of him when he annexed the Crimea from the Ukraine.

The Chinese are patient, and have so far been perfectly willing to wait until such point that they are sure the USA will not start a war with them over Taiwan. That point was probably reached two or three decades ago. A nasty consequence of that would be that Putin will think the same thing about Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. NATO, SCHMATO. He could occupy all three of them overnight if he wanted to. What are we going to do in response? Nuke Moscow? Hardly.

[HUAJIAO]

5. I think you are right on the money about this.

The Chinese will push here, push there, watch the US, push a little more here, see what happens, testing.. then suddenly one of those pushes becomes.......the end of Taiwan... I fear....

[Roc2020]

11. naw. I don't fear for Taiwan.

More likely scenario the Chinese will push...make a gigantic military mistake with Taiwan then have a U.S nuke sub up their arse.

[Martin68]

9. The repercussion would include an united international condemnation of China and

a reluctance to enter into any kind of relationship with the country.

[Sapient Donkey]

22. The US/UK had a lot of international condemnation for the Iraq war, but that didn't really do much

China may not be at the point where they can do that now, but we're getting closer and closer to it. Although, I am certain their actions these days make a CCP dominated world less appealing.

[Martin68]

26. China has big plans that include developing allies and partners who are reliant on their largesse.

Without their cooperation China gets pretty isolated. Its not just strategic. China's ego requires that everyone look up to them as the new world power, not the new world bully.

[Sapient Donkey]

27. Maybe I am too cynical or something

I don't have much faith in humanity. Power corrupts and causes changes in how people view the world from what I've seen. We already see China using its power for its own gain. Which isn't anything new for a major power, but it doesn't give me hope that some how China is going to lead humanity to enlightenment (not saying you're suggesting that, but I have came across some people who seem to think so) We just have to look at their behavior in Africa, their treatment of Hong Kong, island building in the south china sea, vague assertions with their nine dash line, their behavior with Taiwan, their massive fishing fleets that are shown up in waters of South American countries, and their military build up that is creeping toward parity with the US. Domestically they seem to take the worst parts of the US and other western countries, and then amplify them hundred times. Our NSA spying programs have nothing on the Chinese, and at least here they sort of worry about the ramifications of taking things too far.

Then we have the Xingjian issue. Even if we take the CCP's propaganda about that at face value, that is still extremely messed up what they are doing. Imagine we did that here? There would be rightful outrage over putting entire cultures/ethnicities into "education centers" to make them more American and productive members of society. I couldn't imagine that going over too well in any western countries these days. We can see the discussion up in Canada about the old residential system for the natives.

I'm just rambling. Sorry. I guess what I'm saying is that I see nothing from China that gives me any hope that they will be different. I suspect that a Chinese dominate world would actually be worse in many ways. They might be trying to play the role of the good guy to some, but I don't think that image holding up too well.

[Martin68]

33. I agree 100% with your last two sentences. A a Chinese dominated world would be an authoritarian,

Big Brother hell. China 's "good guy" charade wore thin very quickly. China does, however, deeply needs the respect of other nations.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

4. Lit up their air defenses, about it, "The incursions did not violate Taiwan's sovereign airspace"

China isn't doing anything, at least till after the winter Olympics are over in Feb, they got their own agenda that has nothing to do with us.

[Marcuse]

6. The bright side of the rising South China Sea level due to climate change.

[Martin68]

10. I'm just waiting for a huge cyclone to hit those "islands."

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. Not a problem - just add more layers of concrete. China has plenty of it.

Typhoons are predictable. If they see one coming, they just evacuate all serviceable aircraft. The ones that are down for maintenance, well, they may be a write-off if the storm surge is high.

[BlueWavePsych]

8. Ha! QUAD is working.

Literally and figuratively ...

[Crowman2009]

12. The PLA fighter planes aren't allowed to carry external fuel tanks.

Mainly due to keep pilots from defecting.

[bluewater]

13. Um, if they have enough fuel to fly near Taiwan and then back...

Surely they have enough fuel just to land at Taiwan?



But hey, whatever.

[AverageOldGuy]

14. Chinese pilot defections . . .

[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cold_War_pilot_defections|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cold_War_pilot_defections
]
Scroll down to the heading China for a list of Chinese air force pilots who defected or attempted to -- a number of them defected to Taiwan.

[bluewater]

17. Does that mean there have been no pilot defections since 1990?

Huh.

That's just about when China's big economic expansion started.

Interesting.

[soryang]

16. History rhymes

Commodore Perry followed the sun, proclaiming in a speech, “It requires no sage to predict events so strongly foreshadowed to us all: still ‘Westward will the course of empire take its way.’… The people of America will, in some form or other, extend their dominion and their power, until they shall have brought within their mighty embrace the islands of the great Pacific, and placed the Saxon race upon the eastern shores of Asia.”8

With Pacific ports now under Washington’s control, Perry foresaw an American Aryan march to Asia. The Russian army had advanced into northern China overland and the British navy had bombarded its way into southern China. Now Perry dreamed of establishing a chain of stepping-stones for the U.S. Navy’s approach to China.

James Bradley The Imperial Cruise

[Hortensis]

30. :) Much smaller and more crowded planet, colonialism defunct,

huge new realities, but same lands and seas and much the same big players to contest mastery. How fascinated Commodore Perry would be.

[soryang]

32. The US is still looking for more stepping stones in Asia nt

[IronLionZion]

19. If they think the US is weakened by 20 years of a war on fear

they might be right. I doubt we have the appetite to stop China or Russia's expansion plans with military force, just economic sanctions. But in that case, we're going to wish we didn't make everything in China.

[Evolve Dammit]

21. exactly. They have all the manufacturing we used to have. Corporations moved it all over for $$.

[IronLionZion]

25. Sanctions against China would screw our own economy and consumers

We don't have the manufacturing capacity or economies of scale they do. China outcompetes all their Asian neighbors too.

[Evolve Dammit]

28. they can produce anything, and quickly.

[TomWilm]

23. The same is practice for US war planes ....

... not accepting such zones and provocatively breaking into them has been a US policy since the early 1970s, through the Freedom of Navigation (FON) Program - a long-standing policy of exercising and asserting freedom of navigation and overflight rights in international waters and airspace.

Under the FON Program, challenges of excessive maritime claims of other nations are undertaken through operational assertions by the U.S. military. Also the United States has an Air Defense Identification Zone all around the nation's borders, and reacts even more pissy when anyone does not respect this.

[sarcasmo]

24. China seeing how far they can push before we respond.

[VarryOn]

29. Exactly. Just like with Crimea...

There's no USA appetite to take on a super-rival. China will make a move on Taiwan, knowing this. Probably not in the distant future. If I had family in Taiwan, I'd be working to help get them somewhere before the ChiComs take over.

[Red Mountain]

31. China has a LOT of internal issues

and a State controlled media.

War is a great distraction guaranteed to unify the populace.