Taiwan airspace

September 27, 2022

Taiwan airspace

The latest Taiwan news, coming in the week of the momentous Nancy Pelosi visit, is that Taiwan is still weathering the aftershocks of mainland China’s reaction to the visit, that marked the partnership with Taiwan over the CHIPS ACT.  Taiwan’s “raw” semiconductor chips are going to be essential to the implementation of that bill.

But when this bill is begun to be put into action, the global effect on high-tech industry economics is going to be that the American chips industry takes business away from other countries in the developing world: namely, Southeast Asia and China, also smaller players such as India. And the Taiwanese government is maneuvering hard to reach that outcome.

The growing pains from that are involving an increased “threat level” from China, but mainly, of the nature of China showing off the new technology that it has , As if to say, it is also a high tech power.

The latest is a Rainbow CH-4 drone spotted off the coast of the Taiwan outer islands. “Developed by China Aerospace and Technology, the CH-4 has a cruising speed of up to 180 kph and a flight range of 3500 km; the other was a Y8 anti-submarine war plane” per Taipei Times and the Taiwan Ministry of Defense. The two aircraft were among the 20 Chinese aircraft and five naval ships, and combat air and naval patrols and defense missile systems were deployed in response, although the location of the other 18 aircraft or the location of the naval vessels were not disclosed by the Taiwan government.

This all raises at least a concern about drones in the rules of war about invading sovereign airspace by unmanned vehicles.