TAIPEIA: More than 30 Chinese warplanes entered Taiwan’s air defense zone over the course of about six hours, the island’s defense ministry said Thursday, a sharp ramp-up in single-day incursions by China’s military.
China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to take it one day – by force if necessary.
In recent years, Beijing has intensified aerial incursions into the island’s air defense identification zone – nearly doubling the air sorties in 2022 compared to the year before.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang announced Thursday that from 5 a.m. local time (2100 GMT), “a total of 37 Chinese military aircrafts” entered Taiwan’s southwestern ADIZ.
“Some continued... toward the Western Pacific for long-range reconnaissance training,” Sun said at around 11 a.m.
While not the largest number of incursions this year – that would be 45 sorties on April 9 – Thursday’s surge occurred over a much more compressed time frame.
Taiwan’s ADIZ is much larger than its airspace, overlaps with part of China’s ADIZ and even includes some of the mainland.
Taiwan’s military is “monitoring the situation closely,” the ministry said on Twitter, adding that patrol planes, naval vessels and land-based missile systems have been dispatched in response.
They did not clarify if the incursions were ongoing.
Analysts say China’s increased probing of Taiwan’s defense zone is part of wider “grey-zone” tactics that keep the island pressured.
The incursions came a day after the United States, the Philippines and Japan completed their first-ever joint coast guard drills in the flashpoint South China Sea – which Beijing claims almost entirely.
A surge in warplanes and naval exercises by China’s military around Taiwan usually coincides with Taipei making diplomatic engagements with other countries.
China lashes out at any diplomatic action that appears to treat Taiwan as a sovereign nation and has reacted with growing assertiveness to any joint military exercises around the island or visits by Western politicians.
In April, Beijing conducted three days of military exercises simulating a blockade of the island in response to Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwan’s leader Tsai Ing-wen meeting in California.
37 Chinese warplanes cross into Taiwan’s defense zone
https://arab.news/gpazx
37 Chinese warplanes cross into Taiwan’s defense zone
- China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to take it one day – by force if necessary
- Taiwan’s air defense zone is much larger than its airspace, overlaps with part of China’ own zone
‘Keep dreaming’: NATO chief says Europe can’t defend itself without US
BRUSSELS: NATO chief Mark Rutte warned Monday Europe cannot defend itself without the United States, in the face of calls for the continent to stand on its own feet after tensions over Greenland.
US President Donald Trump roiled the transatlantic alliance by threatening to seize the autonomous Danish territory — before backing off after talks with Rutte last week.
The diplomatic crisis sparked gave fresh momentum to those advocating for Europe to take a tougher line against Trump and break its military reliance on Washington.
“If anyone thinks here again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US — keep on dreaming. You can’t,” Rutte told lawmakers at the European Parliament.
He said that EU countries would have to double defense spending from the five percent NATO target agreed last year to 10 percent and spend “billions and billions” on building nuclear arms.
“You would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the US nuclear umbrella,” Rutte said. “So hey, good luck.”
The former Dutch prime minister insisted that US commitment to NATO’s Article Five mutual defense clause remained “total,” but that the United States expected European countries to keep spending more on their militaries.
“They need a secure Euro-Atlantic, and they also need a secure Europe. So the US has every interest in NATO,” he said.
The NATO head reiterated his repeated praise for Trump for pressuring reluctant European allies to step up defense spending.
He also appeared to knock back a suggestion floated by the EU’s defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius earlier this month for a possible European defense force that could replace US troops on the continent.
“It will make things more complicated. I think Putin will love it. So think again,” Rutte said.
On Greenland, Rutte said he had agreed with Trump that NATO would “take more responsibility for the defense of the Arctic,” but it was up to Greenlandic and Danish authorities to negotiate over US presence on the island.
“I have no mandate to negotiate on behalf of Denmark, so I didn’t, and I will not,” he said.
Rutte reiterated that he had stressed to Trump the cost paid by NATO allies in Afghanistan after the US leader caused outrage by playing down their contribution.
“For every two American soldiers who paid the ultimate price, one soldier of an ally or a partner, a NATO ally or a partner country, did not return home,” he said.
“I know that America greatly appreciates all the efforts.”
