Chinese military flights into a sensitive area near Taiwan in January fell to their lowest since Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te took office, an indication Beijing is tweaking its training focus.
The People’s Liberation Army sent an average of 5.4 aircraft per day across the median line of the Taiwan Strait during the month, according to data compiled from the Defense Ministry in Taipei. That marked the fewest since just before Lai assumed the presidency in May 2024.
The decline may be a sign that over the past few years the PLA has finished most of its basic long-distance flight training, said Chieh Chung, an adjunct researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a Taiwanese military think tank.