TAIPEI: On Saturday, Chinese fighter jets locked their targeting radar onto Japanese military aircraft—not once, but twice—prompting a formal protest from Tokyo.
Japan condemned the radar lock-ups as “a dangerous act that exceeded the scope necessary for safe aircraft operations,” highlighting just how serious the incidents were.
For many people, ‘radar locking’ may sound like a procedural expression, but for aviators, it’s a strong indication of threat. Holmes Liao, a professor at Taiwan’s National Defense University, explained that fighter jets use radar in two ways: broadly to scan the skies, or narrowly to track a single target. Being locked onto triggers an immediate alert, signaling a top-level threat and prompting evasive maneuvers or defensive action.
“Locking onto a specific Japanese aircraft is not routine,” Liao said. “It’s a clear message of hostility—a way to test Japan’s limits.”
Experts say such “gray zone” tactics, where military actions fall short of open warfare, are part of a pattern Beijing has long used in the Indo-Pacific. Liao pointed to previous incidents, including China targeting a Japanese military vessel and helicopter in 2013, and confrontations with Australian aircraft in 2022. These high-risk maneuvers are designed to normalize provocations and see how far the United States, Japan, and other allies will respond.
“These aren’t just military maneuvers—they’re a form of psychological pressure on those at the front lines,” Liao said.
According to Liao, Taiwan cannot just sit on the sidelines and watch. He commended Japan for swiftly sharing information regarding the radar lock-ons and admonished Taipei to do the same thing, stressing the necessity of more vibrant intelligence-sharing with partners such as the US, Austrlia, Japan, and the Philippines.
Liao also highlighted the importance of public understanding. “If people know that radar locks are probes rather than a prelude to war, there’s less panic and more readiness to respond,” he said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Kuan-ting echoed these concerns, warning that such aggressive acts could easily escalate into accidents or misunderstandings. “Today it’s Japan, but tomorrow it could be any country traveling through the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
Chen also disapproved and complained of wide-ranging Chinese actions, such as trade boundaries and travel controls, for undermining the region which eat away at China’s reliability and trustworthiness. He stressed that Taiwan would work it out with Japan and other associates to protect and secure regional safety, prompting Beijing to know the outcomes of its actions.
These occurrences highlight the mounting intricacy of the Indo-Pacific security environment, where countries must stabilise military preparedness, negotiation, and information consciousness to keep the harmony in a progressively edgy province.
