[ad_1]
TAIPEI: Taiwan’s air force is no longer fighting every time Chinese planes invade its air defense identification zone, but instead tracking intruders with ground-based missiles to help save resources, a senior official said on Monday. March).
Taiwan’s air force has repeatedly rushed to intercept Chinese aircraft in recent months, and the United States last July approved a possible $ 620 million upgrade package for Patriot surface-to-air missiles to Taiwan.
Twenty Chinese military aircraft entered the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) last Friday, in the largest incursion to date reported by the island’s Defense Ministry, marking a dramatic escalation of tension in the Taiwan Strait.
Although they have not flown over Taiwan, the flights have increased pressure, both financial and physical, on the air force to ensure its planes are ready to depart at any time in what security officials describe as a “war of attrition.”
LEE: Taiwan and the US will strengthen maritime coordination as China looms
READ: Taiwan says it has started mass production of long-range missiles
Speaking in parliament, Deputy Defense Minister Chang Che-ping said that initially, fighter jets were increasingly being dispatched to intercept Chinese jets, whose missions are concentrated in the ADIZ southeastern part of Taiwan.
As that required valuable time and resources, that was later changed, with Taiwan sending slower planes if China did as well, but that has also changed, Chang added.
“So now we heavily use ground missile forces to track them. We are considering the issue of the war of attrition,” he said.
China claims democratic Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.
While Taiwan’s air force is well trained, it is dwarfed by China’s.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has spoken of the repeated missions, coupled with the fact that its aircraft are “middle-aged”, which has led to a huge increase in originally unbudgeted maintenance costs.
The defense minister said last October that Taiwan had spent nearly $ 900 million so far in 2020 fighting its air force against Chinese incursions, describing the pressure it faces as “great.”
