Taiwan Air Force Flexes Muscles after Chinese Overflight

The base in the southern city of Tainan, home to F-CK-1 Ching-kuo Indigenous Defence Fighters (IDF), frequently scrambles jets to intercept China’s air force, Reuters reported.

In a hardened shelter, flight crew from the First Tactical Fighter Wing rushed to ready two IDFs as an alarm bell rang out, aiming to get them off the ground within five minutes of an emergency call, armed with US-made Sidewinders and domestically-developed Wan Chien air-to-ground cruise missiles.

Colonel Lee Ching-shi told Reuters their jets usually go up armed with guns, Sidewinders and Taiwan-made Sky Sword missiles when reacting to Chinese jets and they can respond “at any time”.

“We are ready,” he said during a government-organized visit to the base. “We will not give up one inch of our territory.”

Meanwhile, China said on Tuesday it will conduct military exercises in the South China Sea this week, amid the growing tensions with the United States.

A notice issued by the country’s Maritime Safety Administration prohibited entry into a portion of waters in the Gulf of Tonkin to the west of the Leizhou Peninsula in southwestern China from Jan. 27 to Jan. 30, but it did not offer details on when the drills would take place or at what scale.