China Sends Planes After U.S. Transit Through Taiwan Strait
China has flown 41 military aircraft near Taiwan, as President Lai Ching-te visits the outlying islands of Kinmen and just a day after a U.S. warship passed through the Taiwan Strait.
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00:00Now, Ben, I want to start off with this number, it's 41 Chinese military aircraft operating
00:05around Taiwan, and 32 of them were spotted in the ADIZ, which is a little bit closer
00:09to Taiwan.
00:10Is that number significant?
00:11Is that a high number of planes?
00:13Well, I think it is significant for one, the number we're talking about is well above average,
00:1832 should be considered a kind of a major incursion into the ADIZ.
00:23And it comes kind of in the face of one President Lai's visit to Jinmen for the anniversary
00:28of the A23 artillery battle, the second Taiwan Strait crisis.
00:33And it also comes immediately following a U.S. warship transiting the Taiwan Strait.
00:39But it kind of in the broader scheme of things, in the last three and a half months, since
00:43President Lai took office, there's been an unprecedented surge in Chinese military activity
00:47around Taiwan.
00:49So we have now surpassed the yearly record for the number of Chinese aircraft tracked
00:55inside the ADIZ, that was 1,738 in 2022.
01:00With tonight's report, we're up to over 1,770.
01:04So we've blown past that record, and it looks like we're not going to stop anytime soon.
01:09You also mentioned this U.S. warship transit in the Taiwan Strait.
01:13What was the United States trying to signal to China with this operation?
01:17And why was China upset with this?
01:20Well, all Taiwan Strait transits are intended to signal the same thing, whether U.S. ships
01:24or U.S. and allies and partners or just other states in general, which we've seen this year.
01:29And that's the Taiwan Strait is international waters at the end of the day.
01:33And all states have the right to transit through international waters.
01:37Now China doesn't feel that way.
01:38China views that the Taiwan Strait is an internal body of water for China because they claim
01:44Taiwan as part of the People's Republic of China.
01:48And so it is viewed as inherently escalatory when the U.S. sends ships to the Taiwan Strait.
01:53But in all reality, under international law, it's a completely justifiable thing to do.
01:58Looking at the press release from the United States Navy, they mentioned the word high
02:01seas and that they were transiting in a corridor within the Taiwan Strait.
02:06Usually they use language like international waters.
02:09Is there a difference between that high seas and international waters?
02:13And why is the United States playing around with that wording?
02:15Well, I think it's important to note that the U.S., in addition to saying high seas,
02:18also specified that the area that they move their ship through is beyond the territorial
02:23waters of any coastal state.
02:25But the use of high seas is, you know, nothing really major.
02:29It just reflects a more close alignment with the actual language in the U.N. Convention
02:34of the Law on the Sea.
02:35The reality is China has sent over a thousand planes around Taiwan within a few dozen miles
02:40of Taiwan in the last three and a half months.
02:43And it's the new normal.
02:47China is very good at creating those.
02:48And so, you know, as in Washington, in Taipei, all over the world, what we have to recognize
02:53is that when these things develop in the way that ADA's activity has developed in the last
02:59four years, when we don't take action to prevent this escalation, we're setting ourselves up
03:06for whatever that unknown is.