China steps up Taiwan flybys as 38 planes enter defense zone

Bloomberg

Chinese warplanes made multiple incursions close to Taiwan in the second major display of military might in two weeks.
People’s Liberation Army aircraft conducted 38 flights near the territory, based on statements from Taiwan’s defense ministry. There were 13 Chinese planes in the air defense identification zone in nighttime hours and 25 earlier in the day, the ministry said. Taiwan’s military responded with radio warnings to leave and deployed air defense missile systems.
China’s latest show of force came after Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office issued an angry denunciation of Taipei’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, on its official Weibo account, calling his efforts to strengthen Taiwan’s international relations as nothing but “shrilling and moaning” and “the buzzing of flies.”
The statement followed Wu’s assertion that Taiwan is under constant military threat from China, including gray zone tactics and information security attacks, in a speech to the Hoover Institution earlier this week. China is attempting to lure Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and exclude it from important international organisations, Wu said.
The foreign minister said in a tweet on Saturday that China “flew 38 warplanes into Taiwan’s ADIZ, making it the largest number of daily sorties on record.”

‘Verbal Abuse’
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council hit back at China’s statement, calling it “unprecedented verbal abuse in
the international community,” adding that Beijing wasn’t qualified to handle Taiwan’s affairs.
China has increased its diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Taiwan over the past year. The Chinese air force made more than 500 incursions into Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone in the first nine months of 2021, Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told lawmakers, compared with more than 300 a year in the past. The latest incursions by the Chinese aircraft came as the National Day holiday started in the mainland to celebrate the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the country.
The flights included sorties by 28 J-16s — a China-built strike fighter — and four SU-30s, the Taiwan defense ministry said in a statement. The SU-30 fighter is built by Russia’s Sukhoi Aviation Corp and is used in multiple roles.
Twenty-four People’s Liberation Army aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone last week, one day after Taiwan announced it had requested to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. In June, China’s airforce sent 28 planes close to Taiwan in what was at the time the biggest sortie this year.