Chinese Military Activity Reaching New Highs
China continues to send military aircraft around Taiwan, with total ADIZ incursions this year already smashing last year's total figures. Security analyst Ben Lewis says China is normalizing "heightened" military activity around Taiwan.
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00:00Taiwan's defense ministry is reporting a spike in Chinese military activity around Taiwan's
00:06Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ.
00:10The data shows that since January, China has been increasing the number of military aircraft
00:14it sends to put pressure on Taiwan.
00:18So far this year, there have been more than 1,700 incursions, which is more than last
00:22year's total.
00:24Analysts say that China has ramped up its military activity since President Lai Ching-teh
00:29took office in May.
00:32For more on what these Chinese military trends mean for Taiwan's security, our reporter
00:36Jaime O'Conn spoke to Ben Lewis, co-founder of PLATracker, an open-source database that
00:42tracks China's military presence around Taiwan.
00:46So Ben, looking at information about Chinese military planes coming into Taiwan's ADIZ,
00:52it looks like we've already surpassed the total amount of incursions from last year.
00:57We've already beat that number this year with only eight months into the year.
01:01Why is that significant?
01:02And what does that say about the severity of the situation?
01:04Well, I think you hit the nail on the head.
01:06I mean, looking at the numbers, the entire amount of Chinese military aircraft tracked
01:12inside Taiwan's ADIZ in 2023, we've beaten that in eight months.
01:17And four of those months, there was almost no activity at all because of the stand down
01:22that the PLA engaged in related to Taiwan's presidential elections.
01:26And then the period in between the election and inauguration, the vast majority of the
01:31violations that we've seen, these aircraft flying a few dozen miles away from Taiwan,
01:37are since May 20th, since President Lai was inaugurated.
01:41That's an unprecedented surge in activity.
01:43The tempo, the intensity, the scale is unlike anything we've ever seen before.
01:48Looking at data about these incursions, it looks like there's a steady uptick since January
01:53of 2024.
01:55Coincidentally, that's also when Taiwan's presidential election took place.
01:59Is there a direct correlation between that?
02:01I think so.
02:02I mean, I think the initial increase at the start of the year was from a very low point
02:06at what would be considered below average numbers of activity, gradually up.
02:11And then starting with President Lai's inauguration is when it really skyrocketed.
02:15So I think the relationship there is quite clear.
02:18Well, so far, that's been the case.
02:20Every month since May, the number's gone up.
02:23We had 437 last month, which is the second highest ever.
02:26The only time it's been beat is August 2022, when we had the largest military exercises
02:31ever in history around Taiwan.
02:33So in terms of scale, we've hit an unprecedented level.
02:38Whether they can sustain that, the PLA, or whether they want to sustain that going into
02:42the US presidential elections remains to be seen.
02:45But as of right now, based on current trends, I have reason to believe that it will.
02:49Well, Ben, with so many incursions happening, and we're seeing an increase year on year,
02:55sometimes doubling and tripling of the amount of incursions that China is going into Taiwan's
02:59ADIZ, why are people more concerned about this?
03:03And why isn't a bigger deal here in Taiwan?
03:06I think it's the tyranny of the 24-hour news cycle, if nothing else.
03:10The Chinese do this every single day.
03:13And when you're sending 10, 15 aircraft a day, eventually 10 or 15 aircraft aren't scary
03:18anymore to the public.
03:21And then you bump that up to 20, 25 every single day, eventually 20 or 25 aircraft are
03:25not really going to get your attention.
03:29When I first started working on this, the kind of consensus among colleagues I was working
03:33with it on was that 10 or more aircraft was a big deal.
03:37So I think normalization has been one of, if not the primary goal of Beijing with these
03:43activities.
03:44I think they want to make it so that people don't care that they have a near permanent
03:47military presence around Taiwan because it suits their objectives very nicely.
03:53So my concern is that from where I sit, not a lot of actions are being taken in terms
03:58of how to counter these activities.
04:01And obviously there are limits, but I'm not seeing a lot of proactiveness in Taipei or
04:05Washington for that matter on how we deal with this unprecedented and status quo altering
04:10surge.