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Do PLA drills reveal China strategy to deny military help for Taiwan?
- Observers see a pattern in recent exercises suggesting Beijing is testing its ability to restrict other countries’ access to the island
- ‘Anti-access and area denial’ strategy aims to deter, delay and prevent external forces from occupying or crossing an area of land, sea or air
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An analysis of recent PLA exercises appears to show China has been testing a key strategy to restrict other countries’ ability to respond to an effort to take Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory.
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Drills have included a three-day exercise from May 6 involving naval, air and conventional missile forces from the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command to the east and southwest of the island.
In the same period, the PLA kept up its air patrols over the Taiwan Strait, sending 18 planes on Saturday into the Taiwanese air defence identification zone in the strait and to the southeast of the island, according to Taiwan’s defence ministry.
The Japanese Defence Ministry also reported that China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier was further east of the island, on an exercise that included its ship-borne J-15 fighters and Z-18 helicopters. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group was also deployed in the nearby Philippine Sea.
There was a similar proximity on April 11, when four of China’s largest and most advanced Type 055 destroyers were spotted off the east coast of the mainland in the Yellow Sea as a US carrier group conducted an exercise with Japan near the Korean peninsula.
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With China, Japan and the US all ramping up their military activities in the region, perhaps it was coincidence that so many exercises overlapped.
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