Home Actuality Taiwan launches fighter jets and puts navy on alert for Chinese incursions

Taiwan launches fighter jets and puts navy on alert for Chinese incursions

Taiwan launched fighter jets, put the navy on alert and activated missile systems, in the face of the movements of 34 Chinese military planes and nine warships in its vicinity, as part of Beijing’s intimidation strategy.

The information is from the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense.

The large-scale operation by the People’s Liberation Army, China’s armed forces, comes as Beijing prepares for a possible blockade or all-out attack on Taiwan, which has raised serious concerns among US military leaders, the main ally of the island.

In a memo sent last Friday, US Air Force General Mike Minihan urged US officials to be prepared for a war against China, starting in 2025, motivated by a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

As head of the US Air Mobility Command, Minihan has a keen understanding of the Chinese military. His remarks echo the call from other senior US military officials to prepare the country for conflict with China.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said 20 Chinese military planes on Tuesday crossed the center line in the Taiwan Strait, which has long been an unofficial buffer zone between the two sides divided since the end of the Chinese civil war. in 1949, when the former Chinese nationalist government took refuge on the island after its defeat by the communists.

China considers Taiwan part of its territory, not a sovereign political entity, and has threatened to use force to take control of the island.

Taiwan’s armed forces “monitored the situation (…) and reacted to” Chinese activities, the defense ministry said today.

China has been sending warships, bombers, fighter jets and support planes into airspace near Taiwan almost daily, hoping to deplete the island’s limited defense resources and reduce support for the territory’s pro-independence leader, Tsai Ing-wen.

Chinese fighter jets also clashed with US and allied military planes in international airspace over the South and East China Seas in what Beijing described as dangerous and threatening maneuvers.

In August, the visit to Taipei by former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi sparked strong protests from the Chinese government, which considered the trip a provocation and launched military exercises around the island on an unprecedented scale.

China has repeatedly threatened to retaliate against countries seeking closer ties with Taiwan, but its intimidation attempts have triggered a backlash in European countries, Japan and the United States, which have increased the frequency of official contacts with Taipei.

Taiwan will hold presidential elections next year, but the rapprochement between Beijing and the Nationalist Party of the territory, pro – unification, failed to find resonance among Taiwanese voters, who in the last two elections gave victory to the Democratic Progressive Party, which defends the territorial independence.

Taiwan has responded to China’s threats by buying more defensive weaponry from the US and establishing unofficial ties with other countries, taking advantage of its high-tech industries and democratic system.

Mandatory military service for men was also extended from four months to one year, and public opinion surveys show high levels of support for increased defense spending to resist China’s threats.

In an interview with the Lusa agency, Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, Taiwan’s former Deputy Defense Minister, defended the mobilization and training of the Taiwanese population, to resist an “imminent” Chinese invasion through asymmetric warfare tactics.

“We have to free ourselves from conventional thinking in terms of Defense”, stressed Lee Hsi-ming, who is also a researcher at the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank based in Washington, noting that the island, with almost 24 million inhabitants, must maintain “combat readiness”, in the face of a conflict that he considered “imminent”.

The military admitted an increase in Taiwan’s concern with defense and security issues, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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