Since last year, the People's Liberation Army has frequently sent fighter jets and reconnaissance aircraft to patrol Taiwan. By this autumn, the frequency of reconnaissance aircraft entering Taiwan's " air defense identification zone " has increased rapidly, and military exercises along the coasts of Guangdong and Zhejiang have also been continuously. According to Taiwan's "China Times News Network", the outside world has made various analysis and judgment on the PLA's continuous military actions, including the occupation of the Dongsha Islands. This speculation has not been realized for a long time, which may be related to the US presidential election. Now that the election is over, Biden will be sworn in on January 20. The People's Liberation Army's occupation of Dongsha Island may have begun after Biden took office, becoming the first Taiwan Strait crisis in President Biden's office.
reported that the PLA Air Force and Navy patrol the surrounding areas of the Taiwan Strait reached a peak in 2019. Later, due to the epidemic, the PLA's related military operations have been tightened. The global pandemic has exacerbated tensions in Sino-US relations, and the US presidential election is the same. Many outside analysts believe that the US may provoke military conflicts in the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait, but in the end, Beijing has enough strategic determination and has not given Trump a chance to provoke the war. But at this time, the Taiwan issue was pushed forward, and Beijing seemed to have internal pressure to respond hard. In addition to being a warning to the United States and Taiwan, the People's Liberation Army's military exercises over the past few months were also used to appease the impulse of internal hardliners to use force before the US election.
The PLA has made continuous military exercises over the past few months, showing that Beijing has made a decision. No matter who is elected president, the direction of US-Taiwan relations must be responded to during this period. Now that the concerns about the US election have been eliminated, it is time to take action.
The first outside world to judge that the mainland may occupy Dongsha island was an exclusive report issued by Kyodo News in May. At that time, the analysis believed that this was a limited military operation, which had a shocking effect on the United States and also had a lesson on Taiwan. The war was short and the scale was small, so it would not be expanded into high-intensity conflict, and the international impact was easier to deal with.
The well-known Japanese international relations scholar Yoshiyuki Ogasawara recently wrote an article in the journal " Diplomat " to echo this view. He believes that Beijing continues to use the language of "punishing Taiwan" and intensifies military intimidation against Taiwan. It will not just forget it. It must be the forerunner of certain actions. Now we must take the PLA's military operations seriously. However, it is unlikely that the PLA will land and occupy Taiwan at this time, because the possibility of such a military operation succeeding at the cost of small casualties is very small. The mainland has other options, one of which is to put pressure on Dongsha Island and take it directly.
Taiwan media article said that there are currently ready-made facilities such as airports and houses on Dongsha Island, and there is almost no possibility of defense, but it has a strategic role in mainland China's South China Sea policy. Dongsha is more than 300 kilometers away from the mainland, and more than 400 kilometers away from Taiwan and Philippines . If we look at the Taiwan patrol routes in recent months, except for a few briefly crossing the "Taiwan Strait Central Line", most of them are reconnaissance aircraft entering the southwest waters of Taiwan and then returning to Guangdong. The route locations are approximately in the middle of the connection between Dongsha Island and Taiwan. With as many as 50 to 60 high-intensity reconnaissances in the past three months, which lasted until December (13 times in half a month) may not only be used as intimidation against Taiwan, but will inevitably collect various relevant information frequently, including communication conditions, radar responses, satellite signals and channel measurements, etc., which can ensure a high-efficiency military operation that is lightning-proof and unblocked.
capture Dongsha Island in addition to teaching the Taiwan authorities a lesson and warning the US, it can also push the radar surveillance front along the coast of Guangdong to the South China Sea for more than 300 kilometers, and can counter the US reconnaissance aircraft's approaching reconnaissance of Guangdong in advance. Since the US-China South China Sea crash, the continuous reconnaissance of US reconnaissance planes over the past few years has made mainland China extremely annoyed and sent fighter planes to drive them away many times. If the monitoring point is set in Dongsha, it can respond to the dynamics of US military aircraft in advance, drive them away or interfere with electronic interference.
Comprehensive Taiwan media reports
