China’s Elite Su-35 Fighters Escort H-6K Bombers in Unprecedented Show of Force; Circle Taiwan and Pass Strategic Bashi Channel and Mikayo Strait

Having acquired the latest and most sophisticated Russian made air superiority fighters available, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force has deployed its supermaneuvearble Su-35 aircraft in a show of force over the Taiwan Strait. This comes amid growing tensions between Beijing and Taipei, and shortly after the advanced heavy fighters were seen conducting patrols over the heavily contested South China Sea - itself also a demonstration of their combat readiness in the face of a growing U.S. and European military presence in the region. The fighters deployed as escorts for H-6K heavy bombers, heavily modernised combat aircraft which performed a long range patrol around Formosa, Taiwan’s main island. Two groups of H-6Ks were escorted by Su-35 fighters, with the fighters' long range facilitating their role as an escort for the bombers. One formation flew clockwise and the other anticlockwise in an intimidating demonstration to Taipei.

The PLA Air Force described its advanced joint patrol as a “new breakthrough” in its flights around Formosa, with military overflights increasing in their frequency and violations of Taiwanese airspace becoming an almost daily occurrence. Aircraft were dispatched by the Eastern Theater Command and Southern Theater Command, and continued on past Taiwan after their patrol to pass through both Japan’s Miyako Strait, located between the Japanese islands of Miyako and Okinawa, and then through the Bashi Channel between the Philippines and Taiwan’s Orchid Island. Taiwan’s Air Force scrambled F-16A light fighters, a platform entering its 40th service year in 2018, which Taipei continues to rely on to intercept incoming incursions. The fighters' small armament, low operational altitude and mediocre speed made them poorly suited to intercepting the Chinese bombers given the elite composition of their escort.

While the Su-35 and H-6K formed the bulk of the patrol, the fighters were joined by indigenous J-11 air superiority fighters, Shaanxi Y-8 electronic countermeasures aircraft, Russian built Tupolev Tu-154MD electronic intelligence planes and KJ-2000 airborne early warning aircraft to continue their flight past Taiwan. This formidable force, comprised entirely of elite long range platforms, avoided violating Japanese or Filipino airspace, but nevertheless forced the Japanese military to scramble fighter jets in response. The Japanese Defence Ministry reported that two unidentified Chinese fighters, four H-6K bombers, one Tu-154MD, and one Y-8 passed between Okinawa and Miyako in the East China Sea without entering Japanese airspace.

The PLA Air Force announced following the patrol that it would carry out such manoeuvres on a regular basis in accordance with the service’s training schedule. The exercise comes just days after the Air Force deployed its elite J-20 fifth generation air superiority fighters, the only ones of their kind in service anywhere outside the United States, to carry out exercises over the South China Sea. It also closely followed the deployment of advanced YJ-12 anti ship missiles and HQ-9B air defence platforms to outposts in the region, strengthening the PLA’s anti access area denial (A2AD) capabilities in the face of growing deployments by Western powers - which have regularly violated territory that Beijing claims as its own. With the Bashi Channel and Mikayo Strait holding key strategic importance in the event of a regional conflict, chokepoints which if controlled could seriously disrupt adversaries’ ability to mount an offensive naval campaign against the Chinese mainland, the PLA could well undermine an attack by the United States and its Western allies by exercising some control over these positions. H-6K bombers, long range platforms fielded in large numbers and themselves often outfitted for long range ship hunting, are highly suited to such a role. The PLA Air Force’s deployment of its latest Su-35 elite fighters for this task, platforms highly capable in both air superiority and ship hunting roles, also serves as a formidable demonstration to Beijing’s potential adversaries in the West as well as in Taipei.