Epoch Times
Date: April 13, 2020
J15 fighter jets on China’s sole operational aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, during a drill at sea in April 2018. (AFP/Getty Images)
The recent violations of Taiwan’s airspace by Chinese fighters, bombers and reconnaissance aircraft is testing the U.S. capability to respond with resources strained by the CCP virus pandemic.
Taiwan Ministry of National Defense (MND) reported on April 10 that “several” Chinese J-11 jet fighters, H-6 bombers, KJ-500 command and early warning aircraft violated Taiwan’s western airspace in the South China Sea, before turning south to violate the Philippines and Taiwan airspace over the Bashi Channel.
The integrated air squadron violation follows another provocation that began at 11 a.m. on March 31 when two J-11 jet fighters from China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) crossed the so-called median line of the 110-mile Taiwan Strait.
Such provocations by both nations were common in the 1990s before a tacit agreement was put into place to reduce tensions by keeping their vessels from crossing it. But the ten-minute standoff with Taiwanese F-16 fighters was the first median-line breach in over a decade, according to Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. [FULL STORY]
