HONG KONG, January 11. /TASS/. China’s People's Liberation Army (PLA) has decreased its activity near Taiwan on the eve of the upcoming election of the head of the local administration, Hung Tzu-Chieh, an associate research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told a TASS correspondent.
According to him, the Chinese armed forces will return to the previous level of activity post-election.
"Based on the recent number of Chinese military aircraft entering Taiwan's ADIZ (The Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone - TASS), it can be observed that the frequency of such incursions has decreased since December, with 91 instances in total. This marks the lowest number of incursions since Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan (the previous lowest counts after Pelosi's visit were 97 instances in October 2022 and June 2023)," he said.
"In the first ten days of January, the number of Chinese military aircraft entering Taiwan's ADIZ was 14 sorties. Compared with the average of approximately 142 sorties per month in 2023, the PLA has reduced its incursion towards Taiwan due to the elections," the researcher added. "However, since the intrusion of Chinese military aircraft into Taiwan has become routine and is integrated into the PLA's actual combat training, regardless of the election outcome, the frequency and the number of the incursions are going to return to last year's level after the election. Only, the degree of military response could differ depending on the election results," he concluded.
The PLA regularly sends its ships and aircraft to the vicinity of Taiwan amid exacerbated relations between the two sides following a visit by then Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to the island on August 2-3, 2022. Later, Taiwan was visited by several other delegations of US legislators and officials. Beijing views such visits as provocations, interference in China’s domestic affairs and support for Taiwanese separatists.
Taiwan has been governed by its local administration since 1949 when the remaining Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) fled to the island after being defeated in China’s civil war. Since then, Taiwan has preserved the flag and some other symbols of the Republic of China that had existed in mainland China before the Communists came to power. Beijing regards the island as one of its provinces and this position is supported by most countries, including Russia.