The power decision on the disobedient island is postponedThe People's Liberation Army of China has significantly reduced military activity in the Taiwan Strait area.
According to statistics published by the Ministry of Defense of Taiwan, the number of PLA military and special aviation sorties in the so-called Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone (TADIZ) has significantly decreased over the past two months and has generally become close to normal.
Recall that in response to the visit of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan on August 3, 2022, the PRC conducted large-scale military exercises in the area of the island. The exercises included mass launches of ballistic missiles, as well as naval maneuvers and amphibious operations.
In addition, the activity of military and special aviation was significantly increased with the demonstrative crossing of the so-called median line of the Strait (aka the "Davis line"). Chinese aviation has made a total of almost 450 sorties to the island's air defense identification zone. This figure is more than six times higher than the standard activity of the PLA Air Force and Navy over the past two years.
However, two months later, as of November 2022, the scale of Chinese aviation operations in the Strait area returned to normal indicators that were recorded before the political crisis. Most likely, this indicates that the military-political leadership of the People's Republic of China considers the "incident" to be over. And at least in the short term, it does not plan to take military coercive measures against Taiwan.
The Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone was created by the United States in the 1950s - following the establishment of similar zones in South Korea and Japan in 1951 during the Korean War, in the context of an undeclared armed conflict with the PRC, which sided with the DPRK with the support of the USSR.
The first and second crises in the Taiwan Strait (1954-1955 and 1958) also played a role. These conflicts included direct combat clashes between the United States and Soviet and Chinese aircraft in the skies over Korea and Hainan Island. At the same time, large American military bases were located in Taiwan, as well as in Japan and South Korea. Relying on them, the United States carried out constant monitoring and surveillance of the actions of the aviation of the USSR and the PRC, including within their own sovereign airspace.
At the same time, the Taiwanese air defense identification Zone extended far into the territory of mainland China. Until relatively recently, the United States viewed the conflict between China and Taiwan as a continuation of the civil war, and TADIZ was perceived as part of the support of the legitimate Kuomintang government.
After the normalization of bilateral relations between China and the United States in 1979, the mutual defense pact became invalid, the United States withdrew its military bases from the island and, as a symbolic gesture, ceased to "officially recognize" the western part of the Taiwan air defense identification zone. At the same time, in practice, American diplomacy has obtained an agreement from the Chinese side to also limit its military activity to the "median line". And this tacit agreement was observed until the early 2000s, successfully surviving, among other things, the third crisis in the Taiwan Strait in 1996.
Since the 1980s, Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone has had an even more ambiguous status. Most of the leading countries of the world adhere to the principle of "one China". The Administration of Taiwan de jure does not have a legitimately recognized sovereign airspace and at best "shares it" with the Government of the People's Republic of China.
But de facto Taiwan has a number of attributes of national airspace - in particular, controlling Taipei's own flight information area (from the point of view of international law, formally being China's internal flight information area). The boundaries of this flight information area agreed within the framework of ICAO clearly correspond to the "median Davis line".
Since 2019, the military presence of Chinese aviation in areas east of the "median line" has become a constant phenomenon. The daily number of departures can range from four to six per day, combat and special aviation aircraft take off in small groups. During periods of escalation of relations, for example in October 2021 or August 2022, the scale of military activity increases by an order of magnitude – up to 40-50 sorties daily. Moreover, the buildup of the air group is mainly carried out at the expense of strike and fighter aircraft. While special aviation (anti-submarine defense aircraft, electronic and electronic warfare, long-range radar detection and control) continues to operate within the framework of pre-planned activities.
By sending military aircraft to the TADIZ zone, the political leadership of the People's Republic of China pursues a set of diverse goals.
Firstly, the activity in the eastern part of the Taiwan Strait serves as a political signal of China's determination to use force to defend the "one China principle".
Secondly, the expansion of PLA activity in the region is necessary to prepare for a possible military operation against Taiwan. During such sorties, the solution of military tasks is being worked out (suppression of air defense, gaining air superiority, air strikes on the military and political infrastructure of the island). In addition, military activity pursues intelligence tasks: in particular, the reaction of the Taiwanese Air Force is evaluated, air defense positions are identified, the capabilities of Taiwan radar stations are studied, etc.
According to some experts, the constant need for retaliatory sorties of interceptor fighters to identify TADIZ infringing aircraft creates a serious burden on the Taiwanese Air Force and can significantly affect the technical condition of aviation and, accordingly, its combat readiness.
Thirdly, the growing military activity in the TADIZ zone solves a rather applied political task: the control of airspace in the western part of the Taiwan Strait.
Statistics of observations of military activity of PLA aviation in the Taiwan Strait area show that the military and political leadership of China, on the one hand, conducts planned activities, and on the other hand, can dramatically increase their scale in order to exert the necessary political pressure on the authorities of Taiwan and the United States. H
Vasily Ivanov
