Taipei, Taiwan
—
Taiwan’s military has become accustomed to the routine of tracking Chinese military aircraft flying near the island. Some days there are few. There are many more. But they are almost a constant presence.
So when the planes suddenly stopped coming for nearly two weeks, the silence was shocking and deeply disconcerting.
The spell was broken on Thursday, when five People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft flew around the Taiwan Strait in the past 24 hours, with several flying near the median line that divides the waterway, Taiwan’s military said.
Analysts said this was the longest suspension of Chinese air force activity since Taiwan began releasing daily military data.
“Frankly, this is unlike anything we’ve seen in recent history in terms of PLA activity around Taiwan,” Ben Lewis, founder of PLATracker, an open data platform that tracks Chinese military movements around Taiwan, Japan and the South China Sea, told CNN.
“Since Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense started releasing this data in 2020, the trend has been up, up, up,” Lewis said. “And now, this lull may or may not have ended today, but it represents a very important change in pattern.”
Since February 27, Taiwan has recorded 13 consecutive days with no Chinese military aircraft flying near the island.
One brief exception occurred on March 6, when two aircraft were detected at the southwestern edge of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, but analysts say the broader pattern still marks a marked departure from China’s military activity, which has steadily increased in recent years.
The sudden silence puzzled analysts and offered a variety of possible explanations.
One theory is that Beijing is trying to avoid escalating tensions ahead of a meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump later this month, which is expected to feature trade, technology and Taiwan.
“If I were in Las Vegas, I would time it for President Trump’s visit,” Lewis said.
Some have pointed to a war involving Iran and the potential impact on global energy markets, but analysts say the link is less certain.
Some observers also note that China’s annual parliamentary session, known as the “Two Sessions,” concludes this week, a period that has sometimes seen military activity slow down in the past.
Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo pointed out that Chinese naval activity around Taiwan had continued throughout this period, and urged caution in drawing conclusions from the lull.
“There are a lot of theories out there,” Koo told reporters on Wednesday. “However, we still routinely see Chinese naval vessels operating around Taiwan, and these efforts to turn the Taiwan Strait into China’s internal sea have not stopped.”
Indeed, despite the unusually quiet skies above, Taiwan continued to track several Chinese warships operating around the island throughout the period.
Lewis said the limited number of aircraft spotted Thursday may not be a sign of a full return to normal activity.
The flight took place on the same day that a U.S. Navy P-8 surveillance plane passed through the Taiwan Strait, but the 7th Fleet said it was an expression of America’s “commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” and the Chinese aircraft may have simply been deployed to monitor American aircraft.
Still, the response appears to have been muted compared to past incidents in which U.S. ships and aircraft have passed through the waterway.
“The number of Chinese aircraft deployed today was actually much lower than in previous incidents where the U.S. Navy crossed the Taiwan Strait,” Lewis said.
This uncertainty has analysts watching closely to see what happens next.
Over the past five years, Beijing has dramatically increased the number of planes it sends near Taiwan, gradually normalizing what was once considered a major military invasion.
Taiwan reported on several days that dozens of Chinese aircraft were flying near the island.
In that context, the plane’s sudden disappearance is as shocking as its return, Lewis said.
“It used to be that five planes would make the news,” he says. “Right now we’re talking about zero, and that’s what’s unusual.”
As of now, the mystery remains unsolved.
