By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
(Washington D.C.) The Chinese military has massively increased its sorties violating Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) starting in September 2020, more than tripling them from 2021 to 2023, a development which reflects Beijing’s interest in pressuring and intimidating Taiwan in a number of key and widely recognized respects.
Certainly the large-scale uptick in violation flights, which jumped from 972 in 2021 to 3,119 in 2022, can be interpreted along the lines of several axes of thought, including war drills and invasion preparation, potential testing of newer technologies and related Concepts of Operation and of course conducting extensive surveillance of Taiwan and US surface and undersea assets.
China & Taiwan
An interesting and yet-to-be-published research essay called “PLA Flight Activity in Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone,” delineates some of the key conceptual and strategic parameters informing China’s stepped-up aggressive behavior.
“The ADIZ incursions occur for several purposes, with China’s overarching goal of putting military pressure on Taiwan and its international partners beneath the threshold of conflict. Regarding these growing incursions, three different factors: training, operational, and political, have already been briefly touched on in the essay written by Kenneth Allen, Gerald Brown and Thomas Shattuck. ( published by the Routledge Taylor and Francis Group in the Journal of Strategic Studies in June 2023.) (Kenneth Allen is a former Assistant Air Attache in Beijing and current independent consultant)
The research naturally identifies that the well known synergy or overlap between more frequent and larger numbers of ADIZ sortie violations correspond to politically sensitive developments such as major US and allied training in the region and collaborative visits from US or other pro-Taiwan officials.
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“As the PLA’s confidence in its own capabilities have grown, incursions into the ADIZ have allowed the PLA to accomplish a range of operational objectives as well. These operational objectives refer to the dispatching of aircraft with the primary aim of accomplishing a live military objective. So far, these have primarily consisted of missions such as intelligence gathering, tracking foreign naval forces, or wearing down Taiwan’s armed forces and testing response times,” the PLA Activity in Taiwan’s Air Defense Zone” states.
However, the research also points out several critical lesser recognized findings of great relevance to the Pentagon, such as the consistent absence of larger formations, a curious absence of the J-20 in any of the violating ADIZ sorties and the presence of attempted multi-domain networking efforts between Chinese sub-hunting planes, fighter jets and surface ships. The researchers compiled a detailed list of all sorties identifying the type of aircraft and number of missions going back several years, and one of their key findings was, simply put, the absence of the J-20 in any of the sorties violating the ADIZ.
Certainly Chinese papers write about the J-20s maturation, demonstrations and technologies such as its WS-10 domestically-built engine, yet apart from a few training missions, the J-20 has not been airborne much near areas where it might be seen up close. This was the thinking of one of the researchers, Ken Allen, who suggested that perhaps the J-20 was kept from flying within Taiwan’s ADIZ to prevent it from being seen by Taiwan’s air defenses, surveillance planes or fighter jets at close range.
The J-20 has also rarely flown any sorties into the East China Sea or South China Sea. As a land-launched stealth platform, the J-20 may have limited reach without operating with not-so-stealthy large tankers, although the jet can clearly go the 100 miles from mainland China to Taiwan.
The absence of the J-20 may also pertain to its mission scope, as it is not necessarily built for an F-22-like air supremacy mission and is instead larger with “dual-wings” and an elongated fuselage. This raises questions about the extent to which it could maneuver and prevail in air-to-air combat engagements, suggesting that perhaps the Chinese might intend a more limited role for the aircraft. This may be largely unknown to a degree and it would likely depend upon the range, fidelity of its sensors, processing speed of its on-board computers and other tough to determine factors.
Tracking the frequency and composition of Chinese flights, the researchers also identified several “networking” efforts wherein a J-16 sent target identification data to both ASW aircraft and surface ships.
“Several sorties appear to be oriented towards training for the PLA, in support of Xi Jinping’s initiatives to achieve more realistic training, focusing on joint-operations and combat readiness. Some incursions resemble maritime strike training, in which ASW aircraft identify enemy naval vessels and relay that information to strike aircraft such as the J-16 or JH-7,” the essay writes. “In 2021, there were 41 instances in which Y-8 ASW aircraft flew alongside strike aircraft. While J-16s are likely to be adopted into the PLAN in the future as the J-16H variant, all current J-16 aircraft are assigned to the PLAAF, making this maritime strike training a joint effort across the PLA’s services.”
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Of course the US has been training for years now with Pacific-theater multi-domain Task Forces in which ground, surface and air units operate synchronized or integrated, data-driven joint warfare preparation. China’s rather transparent and well-documented effort to “steal” US military weapons specs is quite well-known and published in many Congressional and Pentagon reports, yet what may be lesser known is that China clearly appears to be attempting to replicate the Pentagon’s fast-emerging Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) effort.
This raises several critical and potentially yet-to-be-determined questions, such as the actual extent to which the PLA is able to achieve secure, multi-domain target sharing. In recent years, the US military services have been breaking through with multiple efforts and demonstrations showing that indeed air platforms such as drones, helicopters and fixed wing assets are able to send real-time targeting specifics to both ground and surface assets using hardened transport layer technology, advanced technical interfaces to ensure interoperability and AI-enabled data processing.
JADC2 involves an evolving integration between the Army’s Project Convergence, Navy Project Overmatch and Air Force Advanced Battle Management System effort. Each of these respective efforts are demonstrating the technology and new concepts of operation sufficient to network a group of warzone “nodes” such as large weapons platforms, unmanned systems and various command and control points.
It certainly seems feasible that China has taken notice, given the researchers’ discovery that Chinese training drills specifically include efforts to “network” sub-hunting planes, ships and fighter jets.
“Training-wise, the PLA uses these flights to improve its capabilities and to become a more capable joint military force. This, in turn, allows it to take a more assertive stance in the waters off its coast; engage in more assertive political signaling; conduct a wide range of military operations in the region; and prepare for future combat operations,” Allen, Brown and Shattuck write.
These researchers highlight what appears to be a significant and concerning trend which has picked up or intensified in recent years, meaning the Chinese newspapers regularly describe multi-domain PLA Army – PLA Navy joint training exercises and have on several occasions fun air-surface oriented amphibious attack drills such as those likely to attack Taiwan in the event of an invasion.
The Japanese 2022 Defense Paper and the Pentagon’s annual China report also both specifically cite China’s clear effort to better network the force, something evidenced by the finding of the research. Japan’s Defence text specifically identifies the threat of what it calls “intelligentized” or networked warfare.
However, the real question is not so much about China’s observable effort to replicate US progress in the realm of multi-service joint networking, but the level of its security and transport layer integration. Specifically, the US military services have been breaking through with technology enabling secure, transport layer interoperability. Operationally, this means, for example, that EO/IR video data feeds, specific RF driven datalinks and different frequencies can increasingly share information between otherwise incompatible transport layer technologies using common IP protocol, adaptable technical standards and often AI-enabled gateway systems which gather, organize analyze sensor input from different sources, identify how they inform one another and specify, “translate” and transmit integrated data of greatest operational relevance.
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Technically speaking, this is difficult to do and has taken years of research, experimentation and innovation for the US Military to accomplish, yet now with AI-enabled systems, gateways, interfaces and breakthrough networking technologies, the US services are quickly showing breakthrough joint-networking capability. This massively improves operational efficiency, sensor-to-shooter time, operational attack possibilities and new, higher-speed tactics now informing new concepts of Combined Arms Maneuver.
The question, as raised to a relevant extent by the researchers, is just how effective is this Chinese networking. Can J-16s truly send encrypted RF signals and achieve secure data link transmissions in real time between surface ships and ASW sub-hunting platforms? To what extent are Chinese AI-generated computing and analysis technologies comparable to US progress? The margin of difference likely lies, to a large extent, in answers to these difficult to answer questions. How much can integrated Chinese forces shorten sensor-to-shooter time in a manner that competes with US progress. Can they establish the requisite security and not instantly emit a detectable signature? Can data from ship-based radar and fire control be integrated with aerial surveillance information from J-16s or even sent to sub-hunting planes searching for enemy vessels beyond the radar horizon or available signature aperture?
The US is breaking through with this kind of technology, and one potential indication found in the research is that the Chinese violations of the ADIZ rarely if at all involve a larger number of nodes spanning across a wider operational envelope enabled by successful “mesh” networking. While the researchers did find one occasion in which 34 J-16 violated the ADIZ in a sortie involving multiple squadrons, the PLA Air Force formations were typically quite small, indicating a possible inability to achieve multi-node, cross-domain networking across a combat theater.
“Fighter aircraft typically flew in two- or four-ship formations as part of a flight squadron. PLA flight squadrons each have five aircraft of which one undergoes daily maintenance. 47% of all J-16 incursions in 2021 flew in two-ship formations, while 27% flew in four-ship formations.The majority of fighter sorties likely consisted of aircraft from the same unit and were organized according to flight squadron; however, the incursion that took place on 4 October 2021 with 34 J-16s would have involved more than one fighter unit,” the essay states. The report also discusses sorties per airframe and pilot. The key is that each J-16 has two seats. As part of the text, Allen and Garafola explain that the increase in sorties does not fully equate to much broader training of pilots which might be needed to “mass” for any war scenario.
“Although the number of PLA sorties into Taiwan’s ADIZ in 2021 appears impressive, the number of sorties per pilot is less so (see Table 6). Assuming each airframe flies the same number of sorties, this means that each J-16 airframe within range of the ADIZ flew only four sorties that year. Assuming each of the 216 J-16 pilots (based on 90 aircraft, 2 seats per aircraft, with 1.2 pilots per seat) gets to fly the same number of sorties, this equates to roughly 3.3 sorties per pilot in 2021…..If some pilots are given more sorties, that detracts from training others,” the text explains. (Allen and Garafola, 70 Years of the PLA Air Force, Chapter 6.0)
Overall, what much of this suggests is that the true nature of the growing Chinese air threat may simply be too difficult to determine with real clarity, as it likely depends upon a few “difficult-to-determine” variables such as the actual air-combat capabilities, sensors and weapons of the J-20 and the true extent of the PLA’s multi-domain networking ability. However, what is quite clear is that the PLA is deeply immersed in what appears to be efforts to replicate, follow, or seek to exceed US technological and tactical progress.
Also, China is operating at a numbers and 5th-generation deficit when it comes to an ability to compete with the US. Global Firepower reports that the US Air Force operates 10,000 more total aircraft than the Chinese. The site lists the US as having 13, 300, compared to China’s 3,284 overall aircraft. The fighter aircraft deficit between the US and China, however, is considerably less; the US has 1,914 fighter aircraft compared to China’s 1,199, numbers which indicate China’s clear emphasis upon fighter aircraft. At the same time, a perhaps lesser recognized but extremely critical point is the Chinese lack of maritime-launched 5th-generation aircraft.
As discussed, the J-20 is land launched and potentially challenged to operate at sea, unconstrained by geography without assuming massive risks associated with v
ulnerable tanker planes. As part of this challenge, the PRC is stated to only operate 4 aerial tankers anyway, a large disparity compared with the US’ 568 tankers. Added to this dynamic is the fact that the US Navy now also has the MQ-25 Stingray, a carrier-launched refueler aircraft capable of massively expanding its maritime power projection capability and range. It seems it would be important to establish whether China was engineering its own equivalent, something which would not be surprising given the PRC’s well known and documented habit of copying US platforms and technologies.
The PRC Air Force is building its first carrier-launched 5th-generation aircraft in the form of the J-31, however it is not clear how far along it is or when it might be operational in impactful numbers. Given this, compared with the US, the Chinese are operating at a massive 5th-gen deficit at sea, given that US America-class amphibs can operate at least 13 F-35Bs and the carrier-launched F-35C is arriving in larger numbers. In terms of operational capacity, this means the US Navy would likely be able to achieve air superiority reasonably fast from the ocean, provided they were sufficiently forward-positioned.
A perhaps equally critical part of a US Navy maritime air-superiority pertains to US allies. Japan has just made a massive, multi-billion 5th-generation F-35 buy and both Singapore and Australia operate F-35s as well. While Australia is quite a distance, southern Japan can be anywhere from 500 to 1000 miles from Taiwan, depending upon where F-35s launched from. This places Japanese 5th-generation assets within range of operating in vital parts of the Pacific of importance to Taiwan.
These variables may explain why any Chinese attack on Taiwan would likely involve ballistic missiles, space and amphibious or Naval operations with a mind to what the Pentagon’s China report refers to as a “fait accompli,” meaning a Chinese effort to occupy and “annex” Taiwan before the US could respond. Such a maneuver, should it be accomplished in time, would seek to mitigate the massive US 5th-gen aerial superiority using speed and surprise and invade Taiwan quickly perhaps at a time when the US and its allies were less forward positioned.
The strategy here would be to massively raise the costs associated with any US and allied attempt to “extricate” China from Taiwan, thus creating a “fail accompli.” Finally, this would likely be quite difficult for China, given that satellite, aerial and maritime surveillance would likely be able to see a “massing” Chinese amphibious force, and the Pentagon is quite vigilant about maintianing a forward presence in the Pacific. All of these factors could be of great relevance to China’s ADIZ violations, as greater numbers of PLA aircraft might give the PRC a “jump start” on any kind of air-attack on Taiwan should they already be in position. This may be a very large part of why the Chinese have tripled its number of ADIZ violations in the last several years.
Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
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