2024 Joint Sword to Ghost Month Period
68% to 85% of Chinese Aircraft Violate ADIZ
ABOVE: J-16 fighter.
China In Arms BOOKSTORE and GIFT SHOP!
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe: $5 Month/$50 Annual (unable to secure a subscription contact the bank for permission for Stripe deposits).
23 May 2024 (Friday)
2024 Joint Sword to Ghost Month Period
68% to 85% of Chinese Aircraft Violate ADIZ
By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德
TAIPEI - From 24 May - the end of Ghost Month (2 Sept), Taiwan’s military has reported that 1,784 Chinese military aircraft, both combat fighters, surveillance/electronic warfare aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles, have flown missions in support of the annual Joint Sword Exercise 2024 to Ghost Month 2024.
According to PLATracker the numbers of ADIZ violations for each July are staggering:
July 2021 - 17
July 2022 - 70
July 2023 - 163
July 2024 - 437
Taiwan has cancer. Stage 3. It has gone to the Americans for the best medical expertise and Uncle Sam has done his best. Taiwan has gone to the witch doctors of Chinese medicine with suction cups and needles, still nothing. Local temples have performed exorcisms, but the devil waits outside the gates tapping his foot, increasingly impatient.
In 2006, China finally established Air Parity with Taiwan (Stage 1). Where no side held any level of control, later China slowly reached the status of Favorable Air Situation (Stage 2), where Beijing had limited air superiority depending on conditions. And now, China has Air Superiority (Stage 3) which is evident from the situation from the map below. Next is Air Supremacy (Stage 4) where China holds complete control of the skies over Taiwan.
To further aggravate the situation, China’s recent August 2022 air and naval exercise demonstrated China’s ability to encircle Taiwan in a pincer movement (aka double envelopment).
These are like the four stages of cancer. Taiwan is basically in the third stage, what doctors call metastasized cancer. There is no reversal. No hand of God to save the island democracy of 23 million.
The worst day for Taiwan was 11 July 2024 when at total of 66 aircraft entered the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ).
Since the 2024 exercise began, on average, a whopping 68% to 85% operated in the ADIZ. There is occasionally the odd jump in the mean, but it appears to be an aberration due to weather.
See maps below.
Western media first described the annual exercise as a “warning” or even “punishment” for inaugurating another member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to the office of President of Taiwan.
But these are annual exercises and not political, though China might use rhetoric around elections to increase paranoia in the media and U.S. government. Yet, these annual exercises, including Ghost Month, are so predictable you could set your watch to them.
On 20 May, the 16th-term President Lai Ching-te was sworn-in to replace Tsai Ing-wen, who served two four-year terms.
China’s Eastern Command announced the exercise on 22 May and the annual exercise is one of two that China holds each year around Taiwan. The second is expected during the Autumn during Ghost Month.
Some of the below maps indicate air sorties near the new Port of Taipei (Tamsui) in northern Taiwan, where many Taiwan defense analysts predict China will make an amphibious landing and then use the Tamsui River south to capture Taipei City.
A decapitation strategy such as this would also allow the Chinese to capture the Taoyuan International Airport and the larger Keelung Port east of Tamshui.
CLICK TO ENLARGE:
NOTE TO READER: Typhoon Gaemi shut down air operations by China between the 25th and 28th.
