China steps up dangerous air encounters near Taiwan

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Chinese fighter jets carried out unusually dangerous manoeuvres near Taiwanese F-16 aircraft during the “Justice Mission” military exercise that the People’s Liberation Army conducted around Taiwan in December.

The manoeuvres included a J-16 fighter firing flares at a Taiwanese aircraft during the exercise, according to people familiar with the incidents and a Taiwanese defence ministry report shared with the US military.

One person briefed on the incidents, which occurred on December 29, said the “risky and provocative” acts followed a pattern of aggressive behaviour towards China’s neighbours in recent months.

In the first incident, a J-16 jet shot decoy flares at a Taiwanese F-16 which had scrambled as the Chinese warplane was about to cross the Taiwan Strait median line, said three people familiar with the encounter.

In the second, a Chinese J-16 flew “very closely” behind a Taiwanese F-16 jet “basically in firing position”, said the person briefed on the incident.

The unprecedented actions did not rise to the level of danger reached when PLA aircraft locked their weapons radar on to Japanese aircraft earlier in December, said three people familiar with the incidents.

But two people compared the first incident to a separate episode in December when a Chinese aircraft fired flares at Philippine patrol aircraft over the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

In a third incident that occurred north-west of Taiwan, a Chinese J-16 flew just underneath a Chinese H-6K bomber, in a “piggybacking” tactic designed to disguise the presence of the fighter jet from Taiwanese radars.

“When they were discovered, the Chinese pilot flipped his plane on its side and flashed the missiles under its belly,” said one person briefed on the incident.

Two people said it resembled a trick Israel used in 1976 during the Entebbe raid when it flew soldiers to Uganda undetected for the rescue of hostages from a hijacked plane.

“It is not the behaviour you expect from a professional fighter pilot but more resembles a gangster swinging his gun around as they walk down the street,” said one person familiar with the incidents.

Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, has said China’s military exercises should be viewed as “rehearsals” for an attack on Taiwan.

In recent years, the PLA has significantly reduced aggressive aerial intercepts of US aircraft, but it continues to target American allies.

In its latest report on the Chinese military — focused on 2024 — the Pentagon said the PLA had “conducted multiple unsafe, operationally dangerous actions near allied aircraft over the last year”, including reckless acrobatic manoeuvres and discharging chaff or flares near aircraft.

Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund, said the PLA was becoming “increasingly reckless” as it stepped up the pressure on Taiwan. “The next likely step in the escalation ladder is PLA aircraft operating inside Taiwan’s 12 nautical miles territorial airspace, which would further heighten the risk of an accident.”

People familiar with the December incidents suggested that PLA pilots were being pushed to do things beyond normal training, in a possible sign that President Xi Jinping’s military purges might be disrupting the PLA command.

“The more aggressive moves and the appearance of highly unusual manoeuvres like the one used in the 1976 Entebbe raid all point to a situation where pilots are told to do things they don’t normally do,” one of the people said.

The person said there might have been a connection to the appointment of General Yang Zhibin to head Eastern Theater Command, the regional command with responsibility for Taiwan, two weeks before Justice Mission. Prior to his appointment, four of the PLA’s five top regional command posts had been vacant due to Xi’s purges.

Ann Kowalewski, a Taiwan expert at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security, said Xi may also be putting more pressure on the PLA to meet his goal for the military to have the capability to take Taiwan by next year.

“[That] may lead the PLA to shoulder more risk to demonstrate to Xi that it is capable of increasingly sophisticated military manoeuvres, raising the possibility for clashes,” she said.

The Chinese embassy in the US did not comment on the incidents, but said the Eastern Theater Command had conducted a successful exercise, which was “severe punishment for the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces’ attempt to achieve independence through military means, and a necessary action to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity”.