By Hollie Younger / Staff writer

Defense experts have analyzed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) “Justice Mission 2025” military exercises around Taiwan last year and found that fighter jets engaged in “risky and provocative” acts, the Financial Times reported today.

In a 24-hour window from Dec. 29 to 30, 130 Chinese military aircraft were detected around Taiwan, 90 of which crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and flew into Taiwanese airspace, the Ministry of National Defense said.

To the northwest of Taiwan, a Chinese J-16 fighter jet flew just underneath a Chinese H-6K bomber jet using a “piggybacking” tactic used to avoid Taiwanese radar detection before flipping on its side, the Financial Times said.

Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense

“It is not the behavior you expect from a professional fighter pilot but more resembles a gangster swinging his gun around as they walk down the street,” a source was quoted as saying.

In a separate incident, a Chinese J-16 jet about to cross the Taiwan strait median line shot decoy flares at a Taiwanese F-16, while another J-16 flew “very closely” behind a Taiwanese F-16, “basically in firing position,” the report said.

Firing flares at such close range is “viewed as unsafe,” it said.

The military exercises followed a pattern of aggressive behavior that month toward Pacific neighbors, including Japan and the Philippines, the report said.

In December, PLA aircraft locked their weapons onto Japanese aircraft, while in a separate incident, Chinese aircraft fired flares at a Philippine patrol aircraft over the disputed Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) in the South China Sea, it said.

The PLA’s military exercises are becoming “increasingly reckless,” Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program, was quoted as saying.

“The next likely step in the escalation ladder is PLA aircraft operating inside Taiwan’s 12 nautical miles territorial airspace, which would further heighten the risk of an accident,” she said.

A ramping up of military aggression could be linked to the December promotion of General Yang Zhibin (楊志斌), commander of the Eastern Theater Command, to the rank of full general, the report said.

The Eastern Theater Command covers the Taiwan Strait and the East China Sea.

The move could also be linked to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) alleged instruction that the PLA be ready to invade Taiwan by next year, said Ann Kowalewski, a senior fellow at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security.

The PLA could “shoulder more risk to demonstrate to Xi that it is capable of increasingly sophisticated military maneuvers, raising the possibility for clashes,” she said.