China flies record 52 planes toward self-ruled Taiwan

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By HUIZHONG WU

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China flew 52 fighter planes toward Taiwan on Monday in the largest show of force on record, continuing the three days of sustained military harassment against the self-ruled island.

The sortie included 34 J-16 fighter jets and 12 H-6 bombers, among other aircraft, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. Taiwanese air force scrambled the jets and monitored the movement of the Chinese warplanes on its air defense system.

Starting last Friday, on China’s National Day, the People’s Liberation Army sent 38 warplanes into the area and 39 aircraft on Saturday, previously the most in a single day since Taiwan began releasing reports on the flights in September 2020. China sent an additional 16 planes on Sunday.

The number of flights into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone had prompted a statement from U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price over the weekend, who warned that China’s military activity near Taiwan risks miscalculation and undermines regional peace and stability.



FILE -In this undated file photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of Defense, a Chinese PLA J-16 fighter jet flies in an undisclosed location. China flew more than 30 military planes toward Taiwan on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021, the second large display of force in as many days. (Taiwan Ministry of Defense via AP, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/china-taiwan-43c581adbe22c82a2af51c7b009717cd

[johnthewoodworker]

1. Powerful people with guns intimidate the weak. We live in a great world. I'm sure it's fine.

[HUAJIAO]

2. What about Taipei sends some planes near Fuzhou, Xiamen, Hong Kong !!!

There really close...

Hell, why not go all the way to Shanghai, Qingtao !

[Mad_Mongol]

8. The Taiwan ADIZ ..

Covers 1/2 of Fujian province.

So a story like this might just indicate Chinese planes flying over the Chinese landmass. Without the proper context, its just sensationalism --clickbait.

[soryang]

3. Air defense identification zones

An air defense identification zone (ADIZ) is airspace over land or water in which the identification, location, and control of civil aircraft is performed in the interest of national security.[1] They may extend beyond a country's territory to give the country more time to respond to possibly hostile aircraft.[2] The concept of an ADIZ is not defined in any international treaty and is not regulated by any international body.[2][3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_defense_identification_zone

In other words, an adiz is comprised mostly of international airspace outside the 12 mile territorial limit.

[roamer65]

4. Chinese retaliation for AUKUS.

Kick the Taiwan beehive.

[Mad_Mongol]

9. When China ..

..Starts doing FONOPS off shore off of Melbourne & Sydney then we can say something about their displeasure with AUKUS. Taiwan? not so much.

[eezapata]

5. Give Taiwan

Just give Taiwan the A-Bomb then china will not dare attack just like N Korea no one dares to attack them.

[roamer65]

6. China keeps it up and we will station American nukes in Taiwan.

[Mad_Mongol]

10. do you think before you type?

We fought a land war in Korea against the PRC in which Truman & Eisenhower both decided nuking China wasn't a viable solution.

Korea is not Taiwan. The intensity among the Chinese for their *lost province* is exponentially higher than the necessity of maintaining a buffer state along the traditional northern invasion route.

And really; a corresponding move would see the PLAN acquiring basing rights in Caracas where a brigade of DF-21s can cover all major cities East of the Mississippi in under 10 mins. Do you want that?

[roamer65]

12. They are already in the area.

Would probably only be a few tactical ones on the island.

They are there already via the US Navy.

[roamer65]

14. Russian submarine launches are faster.

5 minutes to target with their new hypersonic cruise missiles.

[Mad_Mongol]

18. Hypersonic, no?

The Russians have a *hyperbolic* missile as in claims that they can deploy hypersonic missiles are hyperbole. The earliest that this will become possible is around 2030. And that will be first in type production, with mass production at least 2 year after that.


You may not understand this, but the USN spends a great deal of effort to shadow every missile boat that leaves port at Steveromorsk or Murmansk. That's the primary function of the bulk of the USN attack sub fleet.

[Calista241]

19. Russia has launched a single Zircon missile from a submarine.

They haven't gone through wide scale production of the missile yet, and it's not expected to be deployed until late 2022 at the earliest. The Russian Navy has two Yasen class submarines that can be configured to fire the missile. US countermeasures for hypersonic missiles are unknown and unpublished.

We also had our own hypersonic missile test in the last few days.

On a side note, IMO the biggest threat to the world is the Russian Poseidon Nuclear-Powered Nuclear-Armed Autonomous Torpedo. It has a 100 megaton cobalt laced warhead designed to destroy a target and poison 170 to 300 miles of shoreline for thousands of years. It's autonomous, has a nuclear powered reactor, and will circulate in the mid-Atlantic for months or years without maintenance. It can operate at extreme speeds in very deep water, deeper than any manned submarine can go, and deeper than the majority of our torpedos can function.

[roamer65]

22. Not surprising on the torpedo.

[Mad_Mongol]

11. Give?

Taiwan has had the materials and technology for their own atomic & thermonuclear weapons since the mid 1980s. The last IAEA estimate had them capable of reprocessing enough power plant spent fuel to make ~ 300 kg of weapons grade plutonium.

In theory a properly imploded mass of ~ 9 kg of plutonium gives you a working bomb.

[roamer65]

13. They don't need them.

Taiwan, Japan and Australia are under the American nuclear umbrella.

They would simply have US forces station ours, if they chose, so they would not be in violation of the NPT.

[Mad_Mongol]

17. About that umbrella....

Let's review the recent US record on commitments to defend others shall we?

2014 - 2020: US (& UK) ignored our treaty obligations to UKRAINE. In 1996 the Ukrainians agree to denuclearize (they gave up ~ 120 SS18, & 85 SS-20 missiles with the attendant 800+ warheads that they had as a legacy state to the failed USSR) in exchange for Western development and *defense* aid. The Ukrainians got neither when the Russians invaded. The US finally started sending lethal aid to Ukraine in the summer of 2020.

2017/18 The Kurds. The US recruited the Kurds on both sides of the Iraq/Syrian border to fight ISIS. Only to abandon them when the Syrians sent Russian mercenaries & Turks invaded on one side, and the Shia militias attacked them on the other side of that border. Were was the US then?

2020 US president signs a withdrawal agreement abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban *without consulting the legitimate Afghan government* The same administration also made no provisions to exfiltrate Afghans who *collaborated with us** over the last 20 years.


So you claim the US will put our cities & people under certain threat of nuclear war to protect 3 wealthy & militarily capable states, when we didn't do diddly when there was no threat of a nuclear response.

You really need to work on that logic.

[Calista241]

21. For the time being, Taiwan is a national security interest of the United States.

Taiwan Semiconductor is the largest chip manufacturer in the world, and a world that is already drastically suffering a chip shortage. A war in Taiwan would plunge the world into recession based on this one market aspect alone.

Also, right now the US Navy is the least prepared for war than it has been since the beginning of WW2, and will be for the next 50 years. We're actually under 300 active Navy ships. A larger, more capable Navy is planned and paid for, but ships take time to build, and crews take even longer to train and operate effectively.

[roamer65]

23. That is why we would go back to the European Theater (Cold War) mode of thinking.

The Warsaw Pact assembled overwhelming conventional forces and NATO simply deployed more tactical nuclear weapons.

Mutual Assured Destruction.

[underpants]

7. Yikes.

Kicking for exposure

[sakabatou]

15. China's waiting for somebody else to strike first

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

16. When do the Olympic Winter Games begin again?

第二十四届冬季奥林匹克运动会; Beijing 2022

4 Feb, we got some time

[dalton99a]

20. Xi Jinping's Olympic games should be boycotted

No more kowtowing to that belligerent imperialistic asshole

[roamer65]

24. Let's not repeat the 1980 fiasco again.

I don’t think we should mix the Olympics and geopolitics.

The athletes shouldn’t suffer because governments can’t get along.