Anushka Saxena
December 2024 was moderately momentous for military exercises conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) around Taiwan. More specifically, two events of note took place recently, in line with what has been a series of small, medium, and large-scale military exercises to create a new normal around the island since 2022. The first was an aerial intervention which cannot exactly be referred to as a military exercise. Still, it did include the creation of seven reserved airspace zones (7个空域保留区) east of the Chinese provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian, for increased incursions by the PLA.
Interestingly, the official announcement for this event came not from the PLA or the Chinese Ministry of National Defence, but from the Taiwanese MoND, which launched counter-exercises to deal with an influx of PLA Air Force aircraft and PLA Navy vessels in the period between December 9-12, 2024. To that end, the MoND explained that by utilizing joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance methods, the Taiwanese armed forces tracked the activities of PLA Navy fleets and Coast Guard vessels from the PLA’s Eastern, Northern, and Southern Theater Commands. These units were, as per the MoND, observed entering areas around the Taiwan Strait and the Western Pacific to conduct extended-range maritime operations.
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