The Financial Times published a Taiwanese internal note recently lodged with the Pentagon that recounts three tense intercepts between People’s Liberation Army J-16 fighters and Taiwanese F-16s during last year’s encirclement exercises around Taiwan. The incidents — the unilateral firing of infrared decoys, a textbook tailing or "biting" maneuver, and a concealment under a H-6K bomber followed by a sudden weapons display — are presented in Taipei’s account as dangerous and assertive moves that go beyond routine patrols.
Taken together, the vignettes depict a tactical repertoire intended to intimidate, control proximity and shape the psychology of Taiwanese pilots rather than simply make a public political point. The use of flares or decoys at close range in lieu of radio hails is a visceral signal: it tells the receiver to keep distance now. A persistent tailing position — occupying a classic firing angle behind another aircraft — erodes the defender’s confidence and, in the mind of the intercepting force, forces choices under stress.
The third episode described — a J-16 masking its radar signature within the radar return of a larger H-6K and then peeling out to reveal its missiles — illustrates a practical emphasis on tactical camouflage and surprise inside contested airspace. Such maneuvers lower the threshold for lethal engagement by demonstrating how the PLA can approach and display weapon options before hostilities begin, shifting encounters from the realm of signalling to embodied coercion.
These tactics map onto broader trends in Beijing’s air operations. The J-16 is a heavy, multi-role fourth-generation platform equipped with a long-range active electronically scanned array radar and long-range PL-15 air-to-air missiles. In the hands of an air force that now fields several hundred of them, these aircraft can be used to impose continuous pressure across the Taiwan Strait, serving as both sensor and stand-off shooter while degrading the defensive options available to Taiwan’s F-16 fleet.
For Taipei, publicising the note to an international outlet serves dual political purposes. Domestically, it frames the island as the beleaguered party in need of sympathy and continued mobilisation. Internationally, it is a pleading card aimed at Washington and other partners: the underlying appeal is for more support, more visible security guarantees and faster modernisation of Taiwan’s defences. That calculation risks incentivising an internationalisation of what Beijing regards as a core territorial dispute.
The operational reality that emerges from these exchanges raises uncomfortable questions for crisis management. Close-in tactical pressure increases the probability of miscalculation and accidental escalation, especially when rules of engagement and identification are contested. Moreover, if the PLA can combine long-range sensors and missiles with aggressive short-range tactics, Taiwan’s airbases and aircraft face heightened exposure in the opening phases of any conflict.
The wider implication is strategic: Beijing appears to be normalising a posture of control rather than mere deterrence, rehearsing the capacity to limit Taipei’s freedom of action in a controlled, graduated fashion. For policymakers in Washington, Taipei and regional capitals, that means reconsidering air defence architectures, dispersal and runway survivability, crisis communication channels and the political costs of conflating deterrence signalling with coercive operational practice.