If their planes hold up like any of their other products I’m pretty sure we’re safe.
THINGS are getting crowded in the airspace about North Korea, Taiwan, Okinawa and the South China Sea.
Beijing’s been surging its combat aircraft into contested areas in a major demonstration of its strength – and as a warning to the United States and its Asian allies.
Beijing is being coy about exactly when and where it staged its demonstrations, choosing to reveal it had sent warplanes through “routes and areas it has never flown before” on the same day the US and South Korea launched large scale mock airstrikes involving 230 aircraft.
North Korea criticised the show of force, stating US President Donald Trump was “begging for nuclear war”.
Beijing, it appears, is thinking along similar lines. “The timing of this high-profile announcement by the PLA is also a warning to Washington and Seoul not to provoke Pyongyang any further,” Beijing military analyst Li Jie told Chinese reportedly told state media.
Chinese media has broadcast several significant movements of Chinese air force units in recent weeks, including a redistribution of squadrons along coastal regions – including the controversial Woody Island airfield in the Parcel Islands.
These came even as Pyongyang successfully launched its biggest, and longest-ranged, experimental intercontinental ballistic missile yet.
Beijing says its exercise included the use of reconnaissance and AWACS radar control aircraft working in conjunction with strike fighters. It included the rapid redeployment of PLAAF aircraft from deep within China to coastal districts before flying far out to sea.
The operations were in and around Beijing’s self-declared air defence identification zone over the East China and Yellow Seas. Arbitrarily announced in 2011, this includes vast tracts of international airspace and waters claimed as sovereign by Japan and South Korea.
Emboldened by its rapidly expanding and modernising military, and its success in simply pushing its way into the South China Sea through the construction of illegal artificial fortress islands, People’s Liberation Army Air Force spokesman Shen Jinke declared this kind of training in the East China Sea will become a regular occurrence.
RUSSIA MAKES A MOVE
Two Russian strategic bombers along with two heavy airlifters carrying 81 military and support personnel have made the long flight across East Asia to visit the Indonesian state of Biak, Papua, to Australia’s north.
The Ilyushin-76 airlifters arrived at Frans Kaisiepo Airport on Monday and Tuesday. They were followed by two Tupelov Tu-95 bombers which were refuelled by tanker aircraft while crossing the Pacific Ocean.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence says the force is there for “navigation exercises”.
“They will only stay in Biak. They won’t go anywhere else,” Manuhua Biak Airport spokesperson First Lieutenant Putukade Wempy told The Jakarta Post yesterday.
The Russians are expected to stay until Saturday.
“The planes fly directly from Russia for 12 hours, and this will be the first time they have flown near the equator,” said Manuhua Biak Air commander Colonel Fajar Adriyanto. “They usually fly in temperatures of minus 37 degrees, now they will fly in plus 37 degrees. So it will really be a 100 per cent change.”
Colonel Fajar said the Russian warplanes were not armed as…