China’s unwelcome Lunar New Year gift to Taiwan was an enormous swarm of mysterious balloons, with 16 of them crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait since Friday. At least six of the balloons passed directly over northern and central Taiwan.
The balloons were traveling at altitudes between 12,000 to 35,000 feet. The sightings on Friday and Saturday brought the total number of Chinese balloons detected around Taiwan since December to 83.
The number of balloon incidents increased noticeably in the run-up to Taiwan’s presidential election on January 13, which was won by anti-Communist candidate William Lai Ching-te, vice-president and chosen successor to outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen.
The Taiwanese Defense Ministry was reluctant to comment on the Chinese balloons, although officials said the six balloons that passed over Taiwan’s land mass on Saturday were a one-day record for such overflights.
Private security analysts told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Monday that the objects might well be weather balloons with standard meteorological equipment — but they could still be gathering useful intelligence about Taiwan for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China and seemingly fit into Beijing’s “gray zone” strategy of exhausting and demoralizing Taiwan by applying constant pressure that never quite rises to the level of explicit military provocation.
“After sending warplanes into our air defense identification zone, the PLA has gone a step further by sending a series of balloons across the median line,” Senior Analyst Chieh Chung of the National Policy Foundation in Taipei told the SCMP.