If Taiwan resists the full adoption of the “One China” policy that China sees as an inviolable condition for entering dialogue with Taiwan, the war of attrition in Taiwan will continue. This war of attrition is economic military primarily, through the constant violations of Taiwan’s airspace, by flights of Chinese military aircraft.
Since this year’s re-election to the Presidential post in Taiwan in which President Tsai-Ing-Wein remains, during which the country’s autonomy was extremely high on its agenda, China has shown its discomfort.
For the Government of Taiwan, maintaining capable and worthy armed forces is a one-way street. Taiwan has the largest fleet of American fighter jets in Asia.
Photo by the website www.fighterjetsworld.com
China’s strategy with the ever-increasing number of violations day and night of Taiwan’s airspace is:
1. Exhaust RoCAF pilots by keeping them constantly under tension.
2. To weaken the reaction time of the air defense by exerting with this strategy “enormous pressure” on the front-line units.
3. To increase the maintenance costs of Taiwan’s fighter jets, which are absorbing more and more resources from the planned budget.
4. To finance Taiwan by committing ever greater financial resources from the annual state budget that could in other circumstances be directed to the development of Taiwan’s economy.
The impact on staff, media and material is far from negligible. Since the beginning of the year and to date the Taiwan Air Force (RoCAF) has carried out nearly 3000 exits to intercept/monitor China’s fighters, which cost $886bn.
The corresponding cost to Taiwan’s Navy was $5.7bn, an increase of $1.20bn compared to the same period last year.
