China's Warplanes on Track To Buzz Taiwan in Record Numbers

China's air force is poised to once again break the record for the number of warplanes it has sent across the median line, the midpoint of the Taiwan Strait that Beijing and Taipei previously tacitly agreed not to cross. China has been unilaterally ignoring this in recent years.

As Taiwan prepares for its presidential election—a contest in which relations with its giant neighbor always loom large—People's Liberation Army Air Force aircraft had crossed into Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ) a total of 1,390 times in 2023 as of the end of September, according to data provided by Taiwan's Ministry of Defense. This is an increase of nearly 10 percent compared with the 1,263 incursions up to the end of September 2022 and a 43 percent rise compared with 2021.

Taiwan's defense ministry has been been issuing reports on Chinese military activities in the Taiwan Strait since September 2020, when Beijing ended its unofficial policy of keeping to its side of the 100-mile-wide waterway and sent warplanes into Taiwan's ADIZ following the visits of high-ranking Trump administration Cabinet officials.

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly stated that Taiwan's eventual absorption is a top priority in his vision of "national assimilation."

The majority of the sorties are conducted by combat aircraft like the fourth-generation Shenyang J-16 fighter, and provide Chinese pilots with training in a potential future war zone. Beijing also demonstrates its air power around Taiwan to signal irritation. A total of 27 military aircraft buzzed Taiwan's ADIZ on August 3, 2022, in response to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan, the first such visit in a quarter of a century.

In addition, ADIZ intrusions serve as a form of "gray zone" tactic for China, a way to up the ante with the goal of pressuring the island of 24 million into submission without committing to a hot conflict—something Chinese leadership has not ruled out as a last resort if Taipei refuses to be brought into the fold.

"The PLA is operating aircraft and naval ships up to the 24 nautical mile contiguous zone," Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund's Indo-Pacific Program, told Newsweek. "If Beijing decides to increase pressure on Taiwan, these platforms could operate even closer, including inside, Taiwan's territorial air and sea space."

Another reason for China's now near-daily sorties is to wear down Taiwanese defense personnel and equipment. Taiwan sends fighter aircraft to intercept any Chinese counterpart that strays into the ADIZ, and over time this results in wear and tear to Taiwan's considerably smaller fleet of aircraft, mostly comprising U.S.-made F-16s.

The U.S., which is Taiwan's main defense provider, has been approving more and larger weapons sales to Taiwan in recent years. However, Washington has not committed to sending forces to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack, despite several comments by President Joe Biden that were later walked back by White House officials.

Analyst Ben Lewis, who along with Gerald Brown runs the open-source database PLAtracker, told Newsweek that the variety of Chinese warplanes and the complexity of their activities is on the rise.

"The average number of different airframes tracked per month has also increased starkly, as has the number of locations [in which] the PLA operates," he said.

On September 18, 103 Chinese aircraft buzzed the Taiwan Strait, with 40 crossing the median line.

This past week, which has seen China's "Golden Week" holiday, flights over the strait have slowed to a trickle, with Taiwan's defense officials reporting no ADIZ incursions in the last couple of days. In a first for the strait, however, Wednesday's batch of 16 sorties across the invisible demarcation included a Chengdu GJ-2 attack drone.

Lewis said the diminished Chinese air force activity was not due to the holiday but to the dangerous conditions brought by the Category 4 Typhoon Koinu. Even so, three Chinese warplanes took to the air over the strait on Friday, though none ventured over the median line.

Lewis pointed out that Golden Week two years ago actually saw the highest single day spike of aircraft in the ADIZ to date.