Taiwan Is Seething That Chinese Warplanes Came Within 40 Miles, but the US Regularly Flies Within 15 of Russia

Red China is keeping greater distance from alternative China / breakaway province / own territory than US is from the rival superpower

Taipei reports that over the weekend Chinese warplanes crossed the mid-point of the Taiwan strait. CNN:

Taiwan’s President has accused Beijing of purposefully inflaming tensions in East Asia, after Chinese warplanes crossed the sensitive median line across the narrow strait that separates the mainland and the self-governing island almost 40times on Friday and Saturday.

Taken together, the repeated incursions, which came from multiple directions and involved a combination of sophisticated fighter jets and heavy bombers, is without modern precedent and marks a significant escalation in cross-strait tensions.

“What we are seeing now is not just a situation across the Taiwan Strait, but a regional situation. China’s recent military activities, especially in the past few days, clearly constitute a threat of force, which is part of their verbal attacks and military threats (against Taiwan),” President Tsai Ing-wen told reporters Sunday.

Aside from the President the Defense Ministry was likewise eager to play it up:

Taiwan has redefined its rules of engagement with mainland Chinese forces, allowing its military to fire back in self-defence.

“In the face of high-frequency harassment and threats from the enemy’s warships and warplanes recently … the military clearly redefined the contingency handling regulations concerning the first strike as our right to self-defence and counter attack,” the island’s defence ministry said on Monday.

The Taipei-based Liberty Times newspaper, however, quoted unnamed military sources as saying that by clearly defining the “first strike” as the “right of self-defence [and] counter-attack”, Taiwanese forces on the front line would be able to fire if they determined that the enemy intended to attack.

China’s reponse was to say “Taiwan Strait median — what is that?”:

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) claimed in a statement that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory; there is no so-called median line of the strait.”

The context of the Chinese flights is the visit of the US Undersecretary of State to Tapei, which is a clear violation of the United States’ 1979 recognition of Beijing under the One China formula. Apparently the mainland Chinese felt the need to respond in some way.

The other thing to say is that the Taiwan Strait is 130 kilometers wide at its narrowest. A plane crossing the midpoint would still be 40 miles from the island.

Compare this to the now weekly US flights to, and along, the very edge of the Russian airspace — which extends 12 nautical miles into the sea.

In other words, even in what it sees as a response to a US-Taipei provocation, Beijing is still keeping a further distance from what it regards as integral part of China, ruled by a renegade regime, than the US is from freaking Russia:

This past weekend, Russian state television on two major channels devoted substantial news segments of their week in review programs to the ongoing game of chicken that the U.S. is carrying on in the air and on the seas at Russia’s borders: on the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Barents and Okhotsk seas in the Far East. From the North, from the South, from the East and West US war planes are simultaneously being directed against Russian defenses to probe their effectiveness and score political points.

According to the statistics released by General Rudskoi on Friday and shown on the Sunday news wrap-ups, the US is now staging some 33 to 40 flight approaches to the Russian borders a week that are met by Russian fighters and sent on their way.

The CNN even characterized China’s flights as “breaches” and “repeated incursions”. So then if the Chinese flying to a point that is 41 miles off the coast of the Chinese mainland and 39 miles off the coast of Taiwan is an “incursion”, then what exactly is the Americans crossing an ocean to buzz Russia?

It is true enough that in the past Beijing and Taipei largerly stayed on their own sides of the strait as a matter of pragmatic convetion, but from Beijing’s view that only works if the US isn’t engaged in provocations such as sailing its warships right through the strait, as it now does every month.

And secondly, it was one thing for Beijing to accept an unofficial median line in the strait while Taipei styled itself a rival, anti-Communist government of China. This at least did not in principle threaten China’s territorial extent, merely its unity. However, increasingly new generations and new political currents in Taiwan are tiptoeing towards proclaiming themselves as something other than China.

And yet, even now the mainlanders still stayed nearly 40 miles away, far more than they needed to even if Taipei had declared itself non-China and Beijing had recognized it as such.

Compare this to the US Navy making it a point to come within 12 nautical miles of Chinese islands in the South China Sea. Or for that matter how is the “median line” during the now near monthly US Navy passages through the Taiwan Strait:

A guided-missile destroyer moved through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday as the U.S. increases pressure on China over its maritime claims in the region, according to the Navy.

A photo posted on a Navy webpage shows destroyer USS Halsey (DDG-97) passing through the strait.

Halsey’s transit comes after USS Mustin (DDG-89) moved through the strait earlier this month. At the time, the Navy said Mustin‘s was the service’s tenth passage through the strait in 2020. 

25 Comments
  1. eagle0one says

    Long live a free and independent Taiwan. Taiwan has never been communist and will once again be the rightful government of China, probably within 10 years IMO.

    Communist China is a blight on humanity, and their actions with the two Michael’s, and their bioweapon attack on humanity, is too much for the civilized world to accept. There will be a decoupling of the Chinese economy to the west after the American election, and it will be all downhill for the communists after that.

  2. Tan Chee Hong says

    Why seething? What message are you sending to China? You can do it but China cannot do it? You must bear the consequences of your actions. Think first before you move.

  3. Bob avlon says

    Ing wen is more an American trouble maker than Taiwanese. They just cannot cope with the True fact Taiwan is built on Chinese Territory. Hawaii is a US island. You cannot go there and build your own country and say its ours. What does it take to wake a brainwashed Taiwan person.

  4. XRGRSF says

    Taiwan is a state of China that is allowing, as we say in the military, its alligator mouth to overload its hummingbird butt.

  5. Raptar Driver says

    Tactically the best thing that china could do would be to quickly overrun Taiwan. Then set up their hypersonic missiles pointing at the sea. When the US carriers and the rest of the navy comes near send them to the bottom of the china sea.The US will be able to do nothing other than nuke China and in return they will be nuked so this won’t happen . Unfortunately for the Chinese this takes balls but these soy eaters apparently lack this.

    1. Jihadi Colin says

      Chinese amphibious warfare capacities were nonexistent until a few years ago and are still being built up. It can’t “quickly overrun Taiwan” without amphibious heavy lift capabilities.

      1. Raptar Driver says

        They can take out their defenses quickly without having to invade. Once their defenses are down The rest is academic. The US navy will try to get involved but it will be too late.

        1. Jihadi Colin says

          The Chinese point of view is, OK, they can wreck Taiwan with missiles. And then what? How do they occupy the place without troop transport facilities? How do they ensure that Amerikastani and other NATO etc vassals like Australia don’t immediately helidrop forces in as human shields? They’re building up their amphibious assault abilities at breakneck speed anyway. As I said in my article on the subject, it’s precisely because China’s building up its capabilities and the Imperialist States is declining so quickly that the Taiwanese are getting antsy about “independence”. The window available is shrinking fast.

      2. XRGRSF says

        The Chinese don’t need to ‘take out’ Taiwan. All the Chinese need to do is cordon off China, and wait while the U$ threatens, and blusters.

    2. XRGRSF says

      The Chinese are even more patient than the Arabs, but in time the deed will be done.

      1. Raptar Driver says

        Clearly they are more patient than I am.

    3. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

      Nobody wants a nuclear war. Nobody.

      1. XRGRSF says

        Then perhaps the U$ should stop dicking with China.

        1. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

          I agree.

      2. Raptar Driver says

        Nobody Sane.

  6. Jihadi Colin says

    High time that Chinese ships practised missile drills just off Los Angeles and sailed through the Tsugaru Straits between Honshu and Hokkaido.

    1. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

      Yep. ‘Cuz Freedumb! I’d laugh my ass off.

      The Department of “Defense” is the biggest fraud in all of government. It’s as useful as tits on a hog.

  7. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

    Taiwan is a spoiled, pampered little bitch, much like many US “allies”.

    Taiwan…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e65fa7d6f993cc13345af748cd7bf52eccc1cabff2ccc895a3505cd74d6e8762.jpg

    1. Jihadi Colin says

      Those dogs are actually very brave, brave to the point of foolhardiness. Don’t go by their appearance. They’re not like the rump regime in Taiwan.

      1. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

        Actually, you’re right. I love dogs. However, many more people are bitten by small dogs than by big dogs.

        1. Jihadi Colin says

          I know. I’m dad to two Tibetan mastiffs and they’ve never even nipped at anyone.

          1. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

            As a kid, I had a miniature schnauzer. Great dog. When my son was a kid, we had a standard schnauzer. Also a great dog but he didn’t know his own size. He was very protective. I was walking him once and he decided he didn’t like a German Shepherd someone was with on the other side of a residential street. The Shepherd growled at him and he tore the leash out of my hand and ran straight into that shepherd. Fortunately, we separated them before anyone was hurt.

  8. ke4ram says

    The US government is totally out of control. It’s insanity knows no end and there is no way the ‘people’ will ever get control. They’re too busy asking for more lockdowns and handouts.

  9. Mary E says

    Isn’t the US Navy pretty far from home? The US is so delusional that it acts as if
    China is building up islands near the US…What is it about the US that it thinks that it
    ‘belongs’ in the South China Sea?? Do they have important business there aside from taunting China? Unbelievable that they can spend that kind of energy and money buzzing another country – like Russia- as their own country is falling apart at the seams from lack of funds for infrastructure and that their carriers are useless and have to be replaced by spending $Billions on the new ones….unbelievable!
    Do they not have anything better to do? Apparently not.

    1. jm74 says

      US has gone rogue because it is a failed state; they don’t or won’t pay their internationally obligated dues. They are in arrears to the UN, failed to pay past dues to WHO; hence they are trying to save face by acting tough but unfortunately for them it only speeds up their downfall.

      https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2020/04/15/who-funding-us-freeze-covid19
      https://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/funding/account_statement/2020/usa_en_2020.pdf

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