Second PLA Drone Circumnavigation Around Taiwan Reported
Taiwan’s defense ministry confirmed on Wednesday that an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the People’s Liberation Army had conducted a flight encircling Taiwan on May 2.
The daily Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) report by the ministry showed a BZK-005 drone crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line north of the island, flying in a clockwise direction around Taiwan before entering the Bashi Channel and flying back across the median line south of Taiwan. As of 6 AM local time on May 3, Taipei reports that a total of 27 PLA aircraft had been detected in the Taiwanese ADIZ since 6 AM on May 2, with 13 aircraft tracked crossing the median line in the Taiwan Strait.
The report followed a report on Monday by Japan’s Joint Staff that Japan’s Air Self Defense Force had scrambled aircraft to intercept what it described as a suspected Chinese drone that had flown into waters between Taiwan and Yonaguni Island. The Joint Staff released its track of the drone’s flight path off of Taiwan’s eastern coast, but did not release any photographs of a visual interception of the drone.
Last Friday, a different Chinese drone conducted a south-to-north circumnavigation of Taiwan. A TB-001 drone was tracked by Taipei crossing the median line south of Taiwan into the Bashi Channel, before flying north along Taiwan’s eastern coast and flying back towards China. Unlike the BZK-005, Beijing has claimed that the TB-001 is capable of launching munitions.
The drone circumnavigations follow the People’s Liberation Army’s Joint Sword military exercises in early April. The exercises, conducted as a show of force in response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the United States, practiced an encirclement scenario of Taiwan, with the PLA Navy aircraft carrier Shandong’s air wing participating in such an exercise for the first time.
In an interview with Overt Defense following the exercises, Daniel Rice, the resident China subject matter expert at the United States Marine Corps University’s Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare, noted that PLA unmanned aerial systems like the BZK-005 and TB-001 will become more common in future Chinese military exercises around Taiwan, as the PLA fields and matures more platforms and capabilities.