In 2020, the military balance of the Taiwan Strait began to change in the direction that is conducive to China.

In August that year, the then Minister of Health and Public Services Alex Azar became the highest -level American cabinet officials visiting Taiwan for more than 40 years.Although he went to discuss the epidemic, the Chinese People's Liberation Army responded to a large -scale military exercise around this autonomous island and sent an aircraft to fly over the Taiwan Strait midline. For more than 20 years, this situation has only occurred three times.Since then, as a response to this kind of interview and other provocative behaviors, China has dispatched more than 4,800 aircraft, and more and more planes were flying in the restricted area before.Dozens of increasingly complicated sea and air military exercises.

The normalization of the Chinese People's Liberation Army in Taiwan has increased the risk of accidental confrontation.However, in the long run, this has gradually allowed Taipei and the United States to enter a state of counterfeiting, and at the same time allow China to launch the key training required for future island -winning battles.

As a military analyst specializing in mainland China and Taiwan, I have managed an open source database that tracks Chinese military activities in the past two years. I am deeply worried about the danger brought by these activities.The alarm should have been ringing, but neither Taiwan nor the United States has taken meaningful actions to deter China. Taiwan's response has always been different and lack of transparency. This may further encourage Beijing.It is necessary to take a tough way to prevent China from upgrading the situation.

In 2020, shortly after China began to be pressured, the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense began to release the military activities report of mainland China in the Taiwan Air Defense identification zone every day.The air defense identification zone is an area extending to Taiwan's territorial sea and leading airspace. Taiwan monitors it to provide early warning when aircraft or missiles are approaching by mainland China.A few years ago, China rarely entered the area.But in 2020, the PLA aircraft broke into the area nearly 400 times.Last year, this number exceeded 1700.

Beijing has been constantly challenging the limit.In the past, the PLA rarely crossed the midline of the Taiwan Strait, the boundary between China and Taiwan.However, in August 2022, after the then Speaker of the House of Representatives Perosi visited Taiwan, the Chinese army crossed the line of 302 times in the month, basically wiped out its boundaries.Today, Chinese aircraft are in the border almost every day. Taiwan has only a few minutes to evaluate China's intention. This is a dangerous guessing game, which opened the door for misjudgment.In addition, since last year, China has basically established permanent naval power around the island.

Because there is no official contact between Beijing and Taipei in the past eight years, the possibility of resolving an unexpected conflict is very limited.An isolated confrontation may be upgraded to China's attacks, or caused China to quickly deploy around Taiwan to quickly traine the air and naval forces, cut off any help from the United States to Taiwan, and greatly reduce the US military options.

This tense atmosphere makes Taiwan's defense system stretched.In early 2021, Taiwan stopped the practice of fighter planes for each act of infringing Taiwan's air defense identification zone. In the previous year, nearly 9%of the national defense budget was used to monitor Chinese aircraft.

This atmosphere also causes policy confusion.After visiting Taiwan in October 2022, the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense announced that any PLA aircraft violated Taiwan's lead and the sea -within 12 nautical miles away from the Taiwan Coast -It may mean that they will be shot down.

Since then, the violations of the PLA aircraft have not been disclosed publicly, but since the beginning of this year, China has sent at least 27 air balloons to Taiwan's territorial airspace to test Taiwan's policy, forcing Taipei to take action or shoot down without taking action or shot down.Selection between balloons -the former is equivalent to acquiring Beijing to continue to infringe Taiwan's airspace, and the latter may irritate China.So far, Taiwan has not taken any action to enter its airspace.

Taipei shared the way of sharing information about Chinese activities is not completely transparent, and the number of information it published has undergone unspeakable changes.To avoid causing public panic, cautiousness is understandable.However, the lack of transparency has also hindered the government to convey the real situation to the people of Taiwan, which may cause people to call for different policies.

Last month, Lai Qingde, who was committed to Taiwan's sovereignty to serve as the next president, clearly expressed their wishes.Lai Qingde's victory provided the government with an opportunity for the military aggression against Beijing to adopt a more transparent, similar to the Philippines.The Philippines has proven that the attention of China's actions in the South China Sea will help to win support to fight against such aggression in China, regions and international scope.

In Washington, both parties support Taiwan, and President Biden said many times that the United States will defend Taiwan.For 40 years, the United States has always followed the Taiwan Relations Law on Taiwan's policy. The law clearly stipulates that any of the future actions that determine Taiwan in the future will be "seriously concerned."However, the United States did not respond to China's recent military activities.

The United States must show China that its military activities may cause war, which is unacceptable.Washington should also coordinate with Taipei to curb China's provocation in a more effective way, such as strengthening information sharing, air patrol exercises, and ensuring that Taiwan has sufficient equipment and preparation to defend its sovereignty.

The strategic attention of the United States is consumed by the war in Ukraine and the Middle East.However, if the United States takes away the dangerous situation facing Taiwan, China may soon cross all lines.?

Ben Lewis?He is the co -founder of Platracker, a website that tracks China's military operations and development, and is responsible for managing the database of the website about China's military activities around Taiwan.

Translation: New York Times Chinese website