Taiwanese Air Force Intercepts PLA Jets in Nighttime Drill Over International Waters
Jets from Taiwan’s air force recently rushed to intercept Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) fighters flying over international waters in the Taiwan Strait.
According to a spokesperson for the Taiwanese Defense Ministry, several PLAAF J-11 fighter jets and KJ-500 airborne early warning aircraft carried out the service’s first “night flight training” Monday evening over the waters southwest of Taiwan.
The Chinese Communist Party-owned Global Times reported on Wednesday that the exercises showed the PLA “is fully capable of launching military operations on the island at any time of a day” and noted that similar drills can be expected in the future “in order to let Taiwan secessionists get a clear idea of the power gap between the mainland and the island.”
Alexander Huang Chieh Cheng, a professor of international affairs and strategic studies at Taipei’s Tamkang University, told the South China Morning Post, “In addition to enhancing all-weather capability of its military fleet, the communist warplanes’ fly-by is aimed at sending out the message that it is business as usual with PLA war games despite the coronavirus outbreak in mainland China.”
Lin Yingyou, an assistant professor at the Institute of Strategy and International Affairs of the National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan, told Taiwan Central News Agency on Tuesday that the drill demonstrated to the Chinese public that the PLA has "the ability to maintain good combat readiness during the epidemic prevention period.”
Lin noted the US military has made similar posture statements as the COVID-19 novel coronavirus spreads in the United States.
Taiwanese air force jets scrambled to intercept the PLAAF fighters after they crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait - an action widely interpreted and reported as threatening. Taiwan News, for example, characterized the episode as China “ramping up its military threat to Taiwan, and Agence France-Presse in Taipei called it an “incursion,” even falsely claiming the jets had “briefly entered its [Taiwan’s] airspace.”
“After our air reconnaissance and patrol aircraft responded appropriately, and broadcast [an order] to drive them away, the Communist aircraft flew away from our Air Defense Identification Zone,” the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in a Monday statement, according to Reuters.
The following day, a Taiwanese military spokesperson posted on Facebook heaps of praise for the island’s F-16 Falcon fighters, which the US is upgrading and the most recent version of which - the F-16V “Viper” - Taipei is buying from Washington.
https://sputniknews.com/asia/202003191078632186-taiwanese-air-force-intercept-pla-jets-in-nighttime-drill-over-international-waters/