China has been pretty active regionally since
the pandemic struck the world and even before that. After Hong Kong, the next
target for Beijing is evidently Taiwan. Last week, Taiwan’s air defence
identification zone (ADIZ) was breached by Chinaa’s 150 warplanes in a massive
military escalation. For two years China’s PLA (People’s Liberation Army) has
increased activity in the region – sending sorties into ADIZ on a daily basis
along with frequent military drills in maritime areas.
The speculations on international stage are
rounding up that China is mounting up the military aggression with intentions
of invading Taiwan – timeline being anywhere between few years to a decade.
Taiwan’s leaders too are not wary of the looming threat. On Wednesday, Taiwan’s
defence minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said that China is fully capable to launch
full-fledged invasion on Taiwan now but it is more likely to do that by 2025.
Beijing has consistently claimed Taiwan as a
Chinese province. President Xi Jinping has made unifying Taiwan with China, even
if it means resorting to use of force. Beijing says Taiwan’s democratically
elected government is nothing short of ‘separatists’. But prime minister of the
island, Tsai Ing-wen says it is a sovereign country that doesn’t need to “declare
its independence”. It has enjoyed de facto status of independence since the end
of civil war in 1949. The independent country holds its own elections, military,
has free media and also own currency.
After USA criticized China’s act of sending war
planes into ADIZ on Friday and Saturday, Beijing again sent 56 planes into ADIZ
on Monday. Clearly signaling it isn’t backing down over international pressure.
Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Asia programme at the German Marshall Fund,
said the China’s flights were increasingly used for training, as well as “to
signal to the United States and Taiwan not to cross Chinese red lines”. She said
adding, “And to stress Taiwan’s air force, to force them to scramble, to stress
the aircraft, the pilots, force them to do more maintenance and test the
responses of Taiwan’s air defence system.”
Stressing that Taiwan must be on high alert
now, island’s premier Su Tseng-chan said, “The world has also seen China’s
repeated violations of regional peace and pressure on Taiwan.” He added that Taiwan
must come together and strengthen itself against aggressive China.
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