Chinese fighter jets conducted "risky and provocative" maneuvers near Taiwanese F-16 aircraft during the "Justice Mission 2025" military exercise staged by the People's Liberation Army around Taiwan in late December.
The maneuvers included a Chinese J-16 fighter firing flares at a Taiwanese aircraft during the exercise, the Financial Times reported Monday, citing people familiar with the incidents and a Taiwan Defense Ministry report shared with the U.S. military.
One person briefed on the Dec. 29 incidents said the acts followed a pattern of aggressive behavior toward China's neighbors in recent months.
In the first incident, a J-16 jet shot decoy flares at an F-16 that had scrambled as the Chinese warplane was about to cross the Taiwan Strait median line.
In the second incident, a J-16 flew "very closely" behind an F-16, "basically in firing position," a person briefed on the encounter told the Times.
The actions, however, did not rise to the level of danger reached earlier in December, when Chinese aircraft locked their weapons radar onto Japanese aircraft.
Two people compared the first incident to a separate episode in December, when a Chinese aircraft fired flares at Philippine patrol aircraft over the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
In a third incident northwest of Taiwan, a J-16 flew just beneath a Chinese H-6K bomber in a "piggybacking" tactic designed to disguise the presence of the fighter jet from Taiwanese radar.
"When they were discovered, the Chinese pilot flipped his plane on its side and flashed the missiles under its belly," one person told the Times.
It resembled a tactic Israel used in the 1976 Entebbe raid, when it flew soldiers to Uganda undetected to rescue hostages from a hijacked plane.
"It is not the behavior you expect from a professional fighter pilot but more resembles a gangster swinging his gun around as they walk down the street," one person familiar with the incidents told the Times.
U.S. Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has said China's military exercises should be viewed as "rehearsals" for an attack on Taiwan.
In recent years, China has significantly reduced aggressive aerial intercepts of U.S. aircraft but continues to target American allies.
Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund, said the Chinese army was becoming "increasingly reckless" as it increased pressure on Taiwan, according to the Times.
"The next likely step in the escalation ladder is PLA aircraft operating inside Taiwan's 12 nautical miles territorial airspace, which would further heighten the risk of an accident," she said, using the abbreviation for People's Liberation Army.
People familiar with the December incidents suggested that Chinese military pilots were being pushed to do things beyond normal training. They said it could be a sign that President Xi Jinping's military purges are disrupting the chain of command.
Ann Kowalewski, a Taiwan expert at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security, told the Times that Xi might also be putting more pressure on the military to accelerate its readiness. She said Beijing has warned it could be capable of launching an attack on Taiwan by 2027.
China views Taiwan's democratically elected government as illegitimate and has not ruled out using military force to achieve "unification."
That may lead the Chinese army to "shoulder more risk to demonstrate to Xi that it is capable of increasingly sophisticated military maneuvers, raising the possibility for clashes," she said.
The Chinese Embassy did not respond to the Times' request for comment.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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