Japan is showing willingness to help protect Taiwan as well as itself from China as the PRC once again steps up its constant military probing of the island (“US Ally Scrambles Jets Against Chinese Aircraft,” Newsweek, August 5, 2024).
Japanese fighter jets were scrambled on Saturday as two drones—presumed to be Chinese—were recorded circumnavigating the self-ruled island of Taiwan via a strategic waterway for the first time.
Tokyo’s Defense Ministry reported the movement of the drones and a Chinese Y-9 intelligence gathering plane within Japan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), an area of international airspace where tracking and identification of aircraft is required for national security purposes.
According to the Japanese report, the two drones flew in opposite directions over the waters between Taiwan and Yonaguni—Japan’s westernmost island—on Saturday afternoon. The report did not identify the types of the drones.
The less than 70-mile-wide “Yonaguni gap,” located east of Taiwan, connects the East China Sea to the north and the Philippine Sea to the south. Both China and its quasi-ally Russia have sent military aircraft, including drones, and vessels to the waterway before.
Taiwan’s defense ministry also confirmed the drones’ encircling flights. During the 24-hour period that ended at 6 a.m. on August 4, a Sunday, Taiwan detected 36 military aircraft in the vicinity, 31 of which, including the two drones, crossed the Taiwan Strait. As Newsweek notes, China has “refused to rule out the use of force to unify Taipei with the mainland,” an attitude more importantly confirmed by its policy of continuous and flagrant military intimidation and probing of defenses than by its chest-thumping words (which are also nearly continuous).
In a February 2024 column for this site, James Roth suggested that Japan seemed to be acting to help China’s neighbors in the South China Sea primarily in order “to build cases about Chinese aggression.”
Maybe it’s that but also more than that.
The PRC’s constant and highly visible cross-strait maneuvers must be documented for various reasons, but not really to make the case that China is endlessly threatening to attack the Republic of China. This is too obvious; the record of aggression is not as patchy as it may be with respect to other countries in the region that China harasses.
With respect to the ROC, the Chinese government brags about the righteousness of its intimidation and has even released an eight-part documentary series asserting its readiness to attack. The provocation? The ROC exists.
