Those Bombers China Sent Toward Taiwan They Were A Dress Rehearsal For War

Three days after President Joe Biden took office, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force sortied a powerful formation of new H-6K bombers toward Taiwan. The same day, the U. S. Navy sailed the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and her escorts into the South China Sea. The timing wasn’t a coincidence. The bombers—which are compatible with YJ-12 anti-ship missiles—were training for strikes on carriers such as Roosevelt, Chinese state media explained. But in probing Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone, the twin-engine bombers also were preparing for an equally important role—lobbing missiles at Taiwanese forces in preparation for an amphibious assault on the island.“Reunifiying” Taiwan with the Chinese mainland is the central goal of China’s foreign policy. As Taiwan is a fully independent democracy, there’s no realistic prospect of the two countries peacefully merging. When officials in Beijing use the term “reunification,” they’re really talking about war. And that war, if and when it comes, could begin with Chinese bombers barreling toward Taiwan like they did Saturday. In that sense, the weekend’s sortie was a dress rehearsal. “It does demonstrate the PLAAF’s ability to put together a multi-plane strike, which we would likely see in the event of a hot war against Taiwan,” said Bernard Cole, a professor at the National War College in Washington, D. C. The scale of Saturday’s bomber sortie is noteworthy. Eight of the 108-foot-wingspan bombers flew toward Taiwan’s southwest air-defense zone. Four J-16 fighters protected the bombers. A Y-8 patrol plane was nearby, perhaps acting as an airborne command post, Cole theorized. It’s not unprecedented for the Chinese air force to sortie eight bombers at once, but it is unusual. That’s a lot of hardware requiring extensive planning and maximum effort from aircrew and ground staff. The U. S. Air Force’s own sorties—such as those high-profile B-52 missions near Russia last year—rarely involve more than four bombers plus support planes. But if Chinese president Xi Jinping pulled the trigger and ordered the PLA to attack Taiwan, the air force certainly would launch more than eight bombers. There are more than 200 H-6s in PLAAF and People’s Liberation Army Navy Air Force service. It’s safe to assume many of them would take part in any air war over Taiwan, which probably also would involve strikes on U. S. bases in the region.“PLA war-planners seem to view their bomber fleets as primarily useful for attacks on Taiwan, Okinawa and Guam,” said Ian Easton, a military expert with the Project 2049 Institute in Virginia. “That's what they are preparing for.”“Unlike other types of military aircraft, bombers are fundamentally geared toward offensive operations,” Easton said. “That's all they do. And because China's H-6 bombers lack stealth and speed, they can only be used effectively in a first-strike capacity to catch targets by surprise.”The bombers probably wouldn’t go it alone.

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