Taiwan has not detected any Chinese military aircraft around the island for nine of the past 10 days, leaving experts puzzled over the reasons for the dramatic reduction in flights.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring the island under its control.
Beijing has increased military pressure on Taiwan in recent years, deploying warplanes and warships around the island almost daily.
But since February 28, only two Chinese aircraft have been recorded in a single 24-hour period near Taiwan, according to an AFP report of figures released daily by the defense ministry.
This compares with 86 for the same period last year. It is the longest stretch without detections since the AFP began recording figures in 2024.
On average, six Chinese warships have been seen on a daily basis around the island in the past 10 days, which was the same as last year.
Chinese military movements around Taiwan also fell about 42 percent in January and February compared to the same period last year. The number of warships was about 4.5 percent lower than a year ago.
Experts have speculated about the reasons for the sharp drop in Chinese aircraft deployments, with possibilities ranging from China’s annual political gathering, known as the “two sessions”, currently underway in Beijing, to its recent military purges.
Other reasons include US President Donald Trump’s planned trip to Beijing later this month to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and the conflict in the Middle East.
“I didn’t expect to be concerned about the cessation of PLA operations around Taiwan, but the lack of a rational explanation is troubling,” Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, wrote on Substack.
Ben Lewis of analysis website PLATracker said it was “clearly a significant disruption of routine activity”.
“The longer the activity gap continues, the more concerned I will be about wider implications, but I have seen no indication that the PRC is preparing for any major kinetic action,” Lewis told AFP.
Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei, speculated that Beijing may be trying to “undermine public support” for Taiwan’s plans to increase its defense spending.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te has proposed $40 billion in additional defense spending by his government over eight years, but the plan has been blocked by the opposition-controlled parliament.
Other analysts were not surprised by the easing of aircraft activity.
“PLA air incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ drop to/near zero around the time of the annual ‘two sessions’ every year,” Brian Hart, deputy director and fellow of the China Energy Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in X.
“If this pattern continues beyond two sessions, then it would be unusual. But I don’t think there’s evidence of anything unusual yet.”
A Taiwanese security official told AFP that Beijing may be trying to “create a false impression that China is easing its threats against Taiwan in order to trick the US into reducing its support for Taiwan’s security”.
“We must not let our guard down,” the official said.
