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Chinese fighter planes performed unusually dangerous maneuvers near Taiwanese F-16 aircraft during “Justice Mission” military exercises held around Taiwan by the People’s Liberation Army in December.
A J-16 fighter plane fired on the Taiwanese aircraft during the maneuvers, according to people familiar with the incidents and a Taiwanese Defense Ministry report shared with the U.S. military.
A person briefed on the events of December 29 said the “risky and provocative” actions followed a pattern of aggressive behavior by China toward its neighbors in recent months.
In the first incident, a J-16 jet fired decoy flares at a Taiwanese F-16 that had strafed when the Chinese warplane was about to cross the Taiwan Strait median line, three people familiar with the encounter said.
In another, a Chinese J-16 flew “very close” to the tail of a Taiwanese F-16 jet, “basically in a firing position,” said the person briefed on the incident.
Three people familiar with the events said the unprecedented actions did not reach the level of threat seen when PLA planes turned their weapons radar on Japanese planes in early December.
But the two people compared the first incident to a separate episode in December when a Chinese plane fired on a Philippine patrol plane over the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
In a third incident northwest of Taiwan, a Chinese J-16 flew directly below a Chinese H-6K bomber, in a “piggybacking” tactic designed to hide the fighter jet’s presence from Taiwanese radar.
“When he was discovered, the Chinese pilot turned his plane to the other side and fired missiles at his belly,” said a person briefed on the incident.
The two people said it resembled a tactic used by Israel during the so-called Entebbe attack in 1976, when it flew troops into Uganda without detection to rescue hostages from a hijacked plane.
A person familiar with the events said, “This is not the behavior you expect from a professional fighter pilot, but it’s like a gangster waving his gun around while walking down the street.”
Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, has said that China’s military exercises should be seen as a “rehearsal” for an attack on Taiwan.
In recent years, the PLA has significantly reduced offensive air intercepts of US aircraft, but continues to target US allies.
in your latest Report on Chinese Army – Focusing on 2024 – The Pentagon said the PLA “conducted numerous unsafe, operationally dangerous actions near allied aircraft last year”, including reckless acrobatic maneuvers and dropping chaff or flares near aircraft.
Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund, said the PLA is becoming “increasingly reckless” as it increases pressure on Taiwan. “The next potential step in the escalation ladder is PLA aircraft operating inside Taiwan’s 12 nautical miles territorial airspace, which would further increase the risk of an accident.”
People familiar with the December events suggested that PLA pilots were being pushed to work beyond normal training, in a possible sign that President Xi Jinping’s military purge could disrupt PLA command.
“The presence of more aggressive tactics and highly unusual maneuvers, such as those used in the 1976 Entebbe raid, all point to a situation where pilots are asked to do things they would not normally do,” one of the people said.
Ann Kowalewski, a Taiwan expert at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security, said Xi may put more pressure on the PLA to meet its goal of gaining military capability to occupy Taiwan by next year.
“(This) may require the PLA to take more risks to show Xi that it is capable of increasingly sophisticated military maneuvers, increasing the likelihood of clashes,” he said.
The Chinese Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.
