Middle-East Arab News and Opinion - Asharq Al-Awsat is the world’s premier pan-Arab daily newspaper, printed simultaneously each day on four continents in 14 cities
SPEED MATTERS: If Taiwan’s fighters flew out of the Taoyuan base they would take six minutes to reach the area of intrusion as opposed to 15, the TPP’s Chiu Chen-yuan saidBy Huang Ching-huan, Tu Chu-min and Jason Pan / Staff reporters
If any war were to break out between the US and China, one trigger might be the increasingly frequent fighter jet encounters near Taiwan.
Almost every day, Taiwanese fighter pilots hop in their US-made F-16s to intercept Chinese warplanes screaming past their territory. The encounters probe the nation’s defenses and force the pilots on both sides to avoid mistakes that could lead to a crisis that spins out of control.
“I didn’t know whether they would fire at me,” said retired colonel Mountain Wang, recounting a tense five-minute confrontation he had with Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) jets more than a decade
Taiwan yesterday reiterated that it would not succumb to pressure from Beijing after China carried out its most provocative military drills in decades in retaliation for US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan last week.
“We will never bow to pressure. We uphold freedom and democracy, and believe Taiwanese disapprove [of] China’s bullying actions with force and saber rattling at our door,” Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday.
China had “arrogantly” disrupted regional peace and stability, he said, calling on Beijing to not flex its military muscles.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has also called on the international community to “support