More than 3,000 Chinese military aircraft breached Taiwan's ADIZ this year, setting a new record as well as a new normal in the way Beijing operates around the country. TaiwanPlus speaks to Ben Lewis, the co-founder of PLA Tracker in Washington, D.C.
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00:00Taiwan is reporting five Chinese military aircraft operating around the country since
00:05Monday, three of which flew closer and breached the country's Air Defense Identification Zone
00:10or ADIZ.
00:12This would put the total number of ADIZ incursions from China well past 3,000 for this year.
00:18For more on what this number means, Jaime O'Conn spoke to Ben Lewis, the co-founder
00:23of PLA Tracker in Washington, D.C.
00:27Ben, what have we seen this year in terms of Chinese military aircraft breaching Taiwan's
00:32ADIZ or Air Defense Identification Zone?
00:36So in 2024, we broke 3,000 ADIZ violations by the Chinese, which is the highest on record.
00:45Originally, 2022 was the highest with 1738.
00:49Now we've broken 3,000.
00:50It's a very significant jump.
00:52It's a very significant jump from last year.
00:55And almost all of that activity has taken place in the second half of the year.
01:00Looking at the overall ADIZ activity within Taiwan in 2024, is there a clear moment this
01:06year that we saw a pretty significant spike in activity?
01:10Well, really the clear indicator is May 2024 following President Lai's inauguration.
01:16At the start of the year, we had really kind of very low levels of activity, the lowest
01:22we had seen in almost two years.
01:25And then starting in May, you know, you jump up kind of back to regular numbers.
01:30So it's an unprecedented surge that is sustained through the end of December, just continually
01:36increased and even though it decreased some in the last two months of the year, it's still
01:40well above average.
01:42And what about the sort of gray zone threats, the drones, the balloons, the kind of smaller
01:49scale kind of aggressions that China uses to put pressure on Taiwan?
01:53Did we see more of those capabilities being used this year?
01:57Yes.
01:58I mean, I think the takeaway from 2024 is more, more, more, more aircraft, more ships,
02:04more balloons, more drones, more of everything, everything that we know about.
02:09So in short, yes, Beijing has activated nearly every tool in its arsenal to coerce Taiwan
02:17in the gray zone, to put pressure on Taipei to make concessions or to not make decisions.
02:23Beijing feels are in violation of one China principle.
02:27And so 2024 was the most intense year.
02:30And really the second half of 2024 was the most intense period that we have on record.