Written by / Daodaojie
The People's Liberation Army has 71 military aircraft operating around the Taiwan Strait, 47 of which flew across the so-called "central line of the strait" and entered the southwestern airspace of Taiwan Island...
The PLA's patrol activity was described by Taiwanese media as "setting the most records in recent times". It is in the eastern theater of our army, and it is rarely publicly stated that this is "a resolute response to the current escalation of collusion and provocation between the United States and Taiwan."
The United States and Taiwan must know what signal this sends.
Combined with the recent exercises of the People's Liberation Army's Liaoning aircraft carrier strike group and the action of H-6 bombers out of the first island chain, they have demonstrated the People's Liberation Army's firm determination to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
U.S. President Biden signed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act , increased arms sales to Taiwan, attempted to conduct military exercises between the United States and Taiwan, or included Taiwan's military in multilateral military exercises hosted by the United States, etc. These will not change the general trend of cross-strait reunification.
01
According to information released by Taiwan’s defense department, from 6 a.m. on December 25 to 6 a.m. on December 26, a total of 71 PLA military aircraft and 7 PLA Navy warships were discovered operating around the Taiwan Strait. Among them, 47 PLA military aircraft flew across the so-called "central line of the strait" and entered the southwest airspace of Taiwan Island.
Taiwanese media reported that this is also the largest scale of "disruption" to Taiwan by PLA military aircraft this year, and has set a record for the second most aircraft entering the southwestern airspace of Taiwan Island and flying over the "central line of the strait".
According to the information released by the Taiwan Air Force, the military aircraft dispatched by the People's Liberation Army this time mainly include: J-11 fighter jets, Su-30 fighter jets , J-10 fighter jets , J-16 fighter jets , Rainbow-4 UAVs , Wuji-7 UAVs, as well as Yun-8 long-range aircraft, Yun-8 anti-submarine aircraft and Air Police-500 airborne early warning aircraft.
It can be seen that the main combat aircraft currently in service of the People's Liberation Army Air Force are included, and there are also unmanned aerial vehicles to cooperate with the operation, and other supporting military aircraft also play an important role.
In August this year, the People's Liberation Army launched the "Taiwan Lock" military exercise, dispatching 68 and 66 military aircraft around the Taiwan Strait on August 5 and August 7 respectively. This time, four months later, the People's Liberation Army once again dispatched a large number of military aircraft to perform patrol missions in the Taiwan Strait.
Regarding this PLA action, the Eastern Theater Command gave a very clear and powerful explanation that day.
The Eastern Theater Command WeChat official account released news on the evening of December 25. The People's Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command spokesman Shi Yi said that the People's Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command will organize joint combat readiness police patrols and joint fire strike drills of all services in the sea and airspace surrounding Taiwan.
He also emphasized that this was a resolute response to the current escalation of collusion and provocation between the United States and Taiwan. The theater troops will take all necessary measures to resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
did not hide it. He publicly warned that this operation was aimed at the provocation of escalating collusion between the United States and Taiwan.
In addition to Shi Yi's speech, the Eastern Theater Command's WeChat account also posted three photos with brief captions, showing " bombers taking off after receiving orders," "combat ships maneuvering at high speed to the target sea area," and "aerial view of the central mountain range of Taiwan Island."
Especially in the third picture, the meaning is ready to come out.
A senior military expert told "Buyi Dao" that the overall number and scale of aircraft dispatched this time is larger than the number and scale of aircraft dispatched during the last "Lock Platform" military exercise, and has reached a new high. This is only what the Taiwan military discovered. There may be some that the Taiwan military has not detected.
Moreover, the entire action was very sudden and highly targeted: it was to warn the United States not to play with fire on the Taiwan issue.
This expert believes that this operation in the eastern theater shows that the People's Liberation Army's army, navy and air force maintain a very high state of combat readiness and are always ready to deal with emergencies . This is also a very strong joint combat readiness police patrol and joint fire strike drill with actual combat as the background.
It can also be seen from this operation that once something happens in the Taiwan Strait, we will inevitably have larger military operations to follow. Those politicians in Taiwan should think carefully about it. "Relying on beauty to seek independence" and "rejecting unification with force" are both dead ends.
Regarding the information released by the Eastern Theater Command this time, this expert said that the information conveyed by the three pictures and a video is not simple. Especially the one where we saw the central mountain range of Taiwan Island through our military plane, which shows that the plane was flying very close to Taiwan Island at that time. It was probably flying close to the coastline so it could be seen so clearly.
02
Both Taiwanese media and US media mentioned that this operation of the People's Liberation Army is obviously aimed at the "2023 National Defense Authorization Act" signed by the Biden administration on the 23rd.
This "National Defense Authorization Act" involves many Taiwan-related contents. Therefore, the mainland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of National Defense, Taiwan Affairs Office, and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress jointly criticized the United States on the 24th.
The Ministry of National Defense warned, "The Chinese People's Liberation Army will remain as ready as ever to resolutely defend the unity of the motherland and territorial integrity." The Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council criticized that some people in the United States have intensified their wrong words and deeds on the Taiwan issue, and have delivered knives and guns to "Taiwan independence", instigating confrontation and pushing the Taiwan Strait to the brink of war.
Specifically, the "National Defense Authorization Act" signed by Biden authorizes to provide 10 billion U.S. dollars in military aid to Taiwan in the next five years through the US State Department "Foreign Military Financing (FMF)" (FMF) plan, and requires the accelerated processing of Taiwan's arms purchase requests.
In addition, the bill also proposes to hold joint military exercises between the US military and the Taiwan military, or invite the Taiwan military to participate in the Rim of the Pacific military exercise hosted by the US military in 2024. It can be said that these are extremely provocative actions. If the United States really does this, it will "push the Taiwan Strait to the brink of war" as the Taiwan Affairs Office of the Mainland China warned.
Overall, the Taiwan-related content of the "2023 National Defense Authorization Act" exceeds 50 pages, which is the longest in history. It mainly involves a series of issues such as military assistance, arms sales to Taiwan, countering Chinese coercion, and exchanges between the United States and Taiwan, among which the most attention-grabbing one is military aid to Taiwan.
The bill also incorporates some provisions of the "Taiwan Policy Act", authorizing Taiwan to provide FMF loans of up to US$2 billion with a repayment period of 12 years; it also authorizes the US president to use the "presidential appropriation power" to allocate up to US$1 billion worth of defense supplies or services from the Department of Defense inventory to Taiwan every year.
In addition to military assistance, it also authorizes the United States to build a "regional contingency arsenal" for Taiwan including ammunition and other suitable defense weapons, and gives Taiwan the same treatment as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) southern and southeastern flank countries, certain major non-NATO allies, and The Philippines, with priority in obtaining "excess defense supplies" from the United States. The
bill also attempts to help the Taiwan authorities expand "international space" and declares support for Taiwan's meaningful participation in international organizations. The U.S. executive branch should seek opportunities to expand Taiwan-U.S. economic relations, including establishing legal templates required for future signing agreements, etc. In addition, it also involves the content of "cultural exchanges between the United States and Taiwan".
It is obvious that Washington politicians are playing with fire if they implement the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. They attempt to use various means to undermine cross-strait peace and stability, undermine peaceful reunification, and want to perpetuate and cause China to be divided for a long time. Their intentions are very sinister.
If the United States insists on going its own way and insists on breaking the relevant commitments in the three Sino-US joint communiqués, we will definitely take corresponding responses and actions to the relevant actions and measures of the United States to deter the separatist forces on the island and some American politicians.
Recently, in addition to the PLA’s 71 military aircraft operating around the Taiwan Strait, our military has also launched some other military operations.
For example, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said that two H-6K bombers flew over the sea area between Okinawa Island and Miyako Island and entered the Pacific Ocean on the afternoon of the 19th. The Air Self-Defense Force urgently dispatched fighter jets to respond, and the sea area where the H-6K bombers eventually flew coincided with the People's Liberation Army Liaoning aircraft carrier formation exercise area.
Starting from the 17th of this month, the Liaoning aircraft carrier strike group has been conducting exercises in the Pacific waters south of Okinawa and southwest of Okinawa Island, including carrier-based aircraft and helicopter takeoffs and landings. The two H-6K bombers then flew from the direction of the East China Sea, entered the Pacific Ocean, turned southeast of Daito Island in the Ryukyu Islands, and flew back to the East China Sea along their original route.
plus the Chinese and Russian navies will conduct the Sino-Russian "Joint Maritime 2022" military exercise in the sea and airspace east of Taishan from Zhoushan, Zhejiang to Taishan . A number of Chinese and Russian surface warships and aircraft participated in the exercise. The exercise location was the closest to Taiwan in the past ten years since the Sino-Russian joint maritime military exercise was held.
Have the DPP authorities understood the signals sent by these military actions of our army?
Whether you understand it or not, the DPP government is on the wrong path of "relying on the United States and seeking independence".
03
Tomorrow, the DPP authorities are likely to make another big move that affects the people on the island.
html At 10 a.m. on the 327th, Tsai Ing-wen will hold the so-called "National Security High-Level Meeting" to discuss the "National Defense Force Structural Adjustment Plan." Among them will be whether to extend compulsory military service to one year. If passed, it will be sent to the "Legislative Yuan" on the 29th. Anyway, hurry up and hurry up to reach a conclusion this year.
Taiwan’s current military service system was implemented during the Ma Ying-jeou period, and the compulsory service period is four months. The outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict at the beginning of this year and the continued decline of cross-strait relations have made the DPP authorities particularly concerned about the issue of troop sources on the island. One of the plans they proposed was to reinstate compulsory service for one year.
The previous long delay of the DPP authorities stemmed from a political calculation.
According to Taiwan's "Military Service Law", if the compulsory service period is extended within one year, it can be implemented one year after the "Executive Yuan" announcement. In other words, if it is announced before the end of December this year, it can be implemented in 2024.
Former Tainan County Magistrate Su Huanzhi once revealed that someone told him that when the Democratic Progressive Party reviewed the "nine-in-one" election 's defeat, it listed the issue of extending military service as the reason for young people not to vote for the DPP. Therefore, it now dares not discuss the issue of extending military service for fear of affecting the 2024 Taiwan region leader election.
No matter how hard it is, it cannot withstand the pressure from the United States.
The United States has always believed that the Taiwan region should show its determination in so-called "self-defense" and that four months of military training is too short. Scholar Fukuyama bluntly said that Taiwan does not pay enough attention to self-defense. Not only does it invest too little in "national defense," but it often invests in the wrong weapons systems. "The biggest mistake Taiwan made was to abolish the military conscription system." Former US Secretary of Defense Esper, who once fled to Taiwan, simply "suggested" that both men and women in Taiwan should serve in the military for at least one year.
As far as the past actions of the DPP government are concerned, since the extension of compulsory service is what "American Dad" wants, he will push it forward no matter how hard he grits his teeth.
The United States asked TSMC to set up a factory in the United States, and more than 1,000 engineers immediately took a chartered flight to Arizona; a little earlier, the United States wanted to export American pigs containing clenbuterol to Taiwan, and the Democratic Progressive Party authorities also responded. Now that the United States wants Taiwan to strengthen its reserve military capabilities, the DPP authorities will most likely just comply.
However, extending the compulsory military service cannot be reduced to political manipulation by the DPP authorities.
If the service time of the compulsory soldiers becomes one year, it will be equivalent to at least an increase of about 50,000 people in the Taiwan military a year. Who will bear the huge expenses of these people? If the total defense expenditure remains unchanged, then money can only be reduced from volunteer service. After all, money for purchasing American weapons and equipment cannot be reduced.
If the number of long-term volunteers does not increase, who will train these new recruits? Over the years, the number of volunteers in the Taiwan military has never been full. According to media reports, the current average staffing ratio of the Taiwan military (that is, the ratio of actual personnel to the total expected staffing quota) is less than 90%, and field units are often only 80%. After deducting personnel who are in training, business trips, long vacations, and new coronavirus confirmed cases, it is likely to be only 70%.
Another reality is that "no one wants to be a soldier" is the basic status quo of Taiwanese society. This year, the enrollment rate of new students at the Taiwan Army College is the lowest in history. It is scheduled to recruit 1,000 new non-commissioned officers in June, but only more than 200 new students have registered.
Hardware facilities for training new conscripts and material supply are all problems, but the DPP authorities have turned a blind eye and tried to collude with the United States externally, strengthen defense internally, and continue to play with fire in the Taiwan Strait region.
We will definitely take certain actions to warn against such arbitrary behavior. In this regard, the military exercises carried out by the People's Liberation Army around Taiwan have never been symbolic, but have clearly deterred the "Taiwan independence" separatist forces: the People's Liberation Army is fully determined and capable of safeguarding national unity, and is always ready to respond to emergencies.
The DPP authorities need to think carefully about this.
