The Chinese military has resumed warplane flights near Taiwan after a 10-day hiatus during which no aircraft were detected around the self-ruled island that Beijing has vowed to annex.
Details on both warplane and warship activity by the People’s Liberation Army are reported daily by the Taiwan Defense Ministry. Between Feb. 28 and March 10, no flights were detected after nearly two years of regular air incursions.
Chinese military aircraft activity picked up on Wednesday, when five PLA aircraft were detected. Three were detected on Thursday, with another three on Friday.
On Sunday, PLA aircraft conducted a large-scale flight incursion near Taiwan that included 26 aircraft.
Sixteen of those 26 PLA aircraft conducted provocative crossings into Taiwan’s air defense zones in the northern, central and southwestern parts of the country, the ministry said on X.
By Monday, the number of PLA aircraft around the island had dropped to two, the ministry said.
Analysts said the temporary sharp decrease in military flights may have been part of preparations for President Trump’s planned summit meeting in China — a trip that Mr. Trump announced Monday will now be delayed.
Retired Navy Capt. Carl Schuster, an expert on the PLA, said the likely decline in warplane flights could be linked to reducing potential tensions over Taiwan ahead of the upcoming talks between Mr. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Taiwan will be an issue, but cutting back on the sorties gives the impression Beijing is looking to reduce tensions,” Capt. Schuster said. “The sorties will pick up again about 30 days after Trump returns to the U.S.”
A second possibility is that the slowdown was linked to a major meeting of the Chinese Communist Party that ended last week.
Despite the ups and downs of military flights near Taiwan, the PLA has continued to conduct nearby naval maneuvers that ministry statistics show did not decline in the same manner that flights did.
China continuously keeps between five and seven naval vessels near Taiwan as part of the pressure campaign.
U.S. military intelligence officials have said the flights are part of a military pressure campaign by China against Taiwan, an island that China’s president, Xi Jinping, has vowed to annex in the coming years as part of what he calls “national rejuvenation.”
In Taiwan, a security official said the decline in warplane flights may have been part of a mainland deception operation that sought to spread the false impression the PLA was reducing threats to Taiwan in a bid to deceive the United States into reducing support for Taiwan’s security.
It is unclear how long Mr. Trump’s trip to China will be delayed. The visit grew out of talks between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi in South Korea in October.
Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that he is disappointed that several nations that rely heavily on the safe passage of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran is currently blocking, have not agreed to join U.S.-led efforts to ensure the strait remains open to shipping.
Chinese military exercises and operations around Taiwan sharply increased beginning in 2020 as part of the pressure campaign on the island’s government.
The pressure followed a 2019 directive from Mr. Xi for the PLA to prepare for military action against Taiwan by 2027. That date was moved up from 2035, according to a military intelligence official.
“We’ve seen the [military] development focused around those two major goals: One is Taiwan invasion scenario, and two is counterintervention,” the official said, using the term for thwarting a U.S. defense of Taiwan.
“However, they’re exercising in those two goals.”
Separately, open-source satellite images and ship-transponder data revealed unusual activity by Chinese maritime militia vessels in the East China Sea.
Thousands of vessels, many of them fishing vessels, were detected gathered into unusual formations and holding positions for an extended time.
Geospatial analysts said about 1,400 to 2,000 vessels were spotted during the activity that prompted several cargo ships to reroute around the boats.
The flotillas appeared to be what analysts call a “gray zone” exercise — an activity designed to support Chinese strategic objectives.
“There have been proposals by defense experts in the United States that the U.S. Navy should treat China’s maritime militia as a real naval force,” said Holmes Liao, a defense expert who is currently a senior advisor for the Taiwan Space Agency. He spoke to Fox News Digital.
