The Chinese military has violated Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) three times more under President Joe Biden than during the entirety of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to data from Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense.
As of June 20, the air force of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has flown at least 1,439 sorties into Taiwan’s ADIZ since Biden took office, greatly exceeding the estimated 436 violations Taiwan endured throughout Trump’s four years as president, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of data from Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense, estimates from Mercedes Trent, a research associate with the Defense Posture Project, and a database compiled by Gerald C. Brown, a defense analyst and contributor at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since 2020, China’s violations of Taiwan’s ADIZ have skyrocketed and now occur on an almost daily basis.
In 2018, the Chinese military reportedly made no incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ, according to data from Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense. However, in 2019, China reportedly began to send sorties into Taiwan’s ADIZ, sending between 11 and 20 sorties that year.
The frequency of China’s violations has since escalated, with Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense reporting between 381 and 390 sorties in 2020 and 972 sorties in 2021. China has already sent an estimated 123 warplanes into Taiwan’s ADIZ this year compared to 112 sorties by June 2021.
Steve Yates, senior fellow and chair of the China Policy Initiative, told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Monday that China has imperial ambitions and will annex Taiwan if the U.S. and its allies fail to act.
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04.23.2024