In recent days, two government officials — one Taiwanese, the other American — have made noteworthy predictions about just when the People’s Republic could attack Taiwan.
Chen Ming-tong, the director of Taiwan’s national-security bureau, last week told his country’s parliament that Chinese officials had debated attacking the Pratas Islands but decided against doing so before 2024, according to Reuters. Chen didn’t reveal the source of his intelligence.
The islands, which are in the South China Sea, are frequently cited as a potential target if Beijing decides to begin an incremental assault on Taiwan. In a report on the islands last summer, Bloomberg noted that they are “uninhabited except for a garrison of Taiwanese marines and coast guard officers” and that Beijing’s air-defense identification zone incursions regularly follow a path between Taiwan and these outlying islands, some 250 miles apart. On this Taiwanese defense-ministry map indicating the most recent incursion, the Pratas are marked by the purple dot, while the Chinese aircraft routes are shown by the red and green arrows:
3 PLA aircraft (J-11*2 and KJ-500 AEW&C) entered #Taiwan’s southwest ADIZ on November 8, 2021. Please check our official website for more information: https://t.co/uywqhwiSy0 pic.twitter.com/DvaIvxXkrq
— 國防部 Ministry of National Defense, R.O.C. 🇹🇼 (@MoNDefense) November 8, 2021
