Global Courant 2023-05-03 15:35:00
TAIPEI — China’s military has sent a drone around Taiwan for the second time in a week, the island’s defense ministry said Wednesday.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) flew a BZK-005 drone — a long-range unmanned reconnaissance aircraft — around much of the island’s sensitive air defense zone, according to flight paths released by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense.
The drone flew from the north and around the eastern side of the zone, according to the flight paths, before turning south and then flying back west – circling much of Taiwan. The flight happened at some point in the 24 hours ending at 6 a.m. local time on Wednesday, the Defense Department said.
The event appeared to be the second time the PLA has flown a military drone in this kind of circular path around Taiwan, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News based on Defense Department releases. The Ministry began regularly disclosing PLA flight patterns in September 2020.
The first circular flight path occurrence occurred late last week, in the 24-hour period that ended at 6 a.m. Friday. Previous PLA drones flew shorter paths around the defense zone.
Taiwan’s National Security Bureau is closely monitoring the drone situation, Deputy Director General Chen Chin-kuang said Wednesday in response to questions from lawmakers.
“So far, no intelligence agency has shown that China intends to use drones to create conflict in the gray zone,” he said. “We will work with allies to keep abreast of early warnings.”
The drone and fighter jet flights come as Mr. Steven Rudder, the retired commander of the US Marine Corps Forces Pacific, led a delegation of defense contractors to discuss the joint development of military hardware, including drones and munitions, with Taiwanese companies at a defense industry forum on Wednesday.
Speaking on the sidelines of the forum, Mr Rudder told reporters that Taiwan – along with the rest of the world – is “learning from” the Russian war in Ukraine.
“We’ve seen smaller UASs (unmanned aerial systems) play a very prominent role and we’ve seen ground forces being able to create a factor of defensive firepower in an urban environment in ways we haven’t explored before,” he said.
This technology “enables you to create cover in areas where you don’t have conventional forces”.
Beijing has stepped up military actions near the island in recent years, including near-daily raids by warplanes into the Taiwan Strait. Last year, the PLA almost doubled the number of military flights around the island compared to a year earlier to more than 1,700.
Tensions between the US and China have also risen over Taiwan, which has sought closer ties with Washington despite mounting pressure from Beijing. President Tsai Ing-wen met with former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi last year and current speaker Kevin McCarthy last month. Those events sparked outrage in Beijing, which claims the island as its own territory.
The PLA held three days of military exercises in Taiwan after the McCarthy meeting, saying it “stands ready to fight and destroy separatism activities and foreign interference at any time”. BLOOMBERG, AFP
