Taiwan regional leader Tsai Ing-wen speaks during the "Double Ten" address in Taipei on October 11. Photo: AFP

 The specter of military conflicts has blanketed the island of Taiwan, and increasingly so in the past few weeks, as Taiwan secessionist forces, led by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority, continue to pursue the opposite of peaceful development of cross-Straits ties and provoke the Chinese mainland with desperate dependence on the US, who offers nothing but empty promises and constantly creates deliberate chaos in the region, observers warned on Sunday.  

"The young people of Taiwan don't want war," Yok Mu-ming, honorary president of the New Party of Taiwan, told the Global Times on Sunday, "but we may be on the brink of war if the Taiwan authority and the US forces continue to provoke [the situation]."

"Any further provocative move by the US could drag the sides across the Straits into actual conflict," Yok warned. 

The warning comes after the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), a major command of the US Air Force, denied Friday having sent an RC-135W Rivet Joint spy plane on an operational intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission last week over the island of Taiwan.

Lieutenant Colonel Tony Wickman, public affairs director of the PACAF, reached out to the media including the defense website The War Zone, claiming that the original confirmation that a US RC-135W spy plane had flown over northern Taiwan had been in error.

"I must inform you that what we gave you was incorrect," he said. "I would like to correct the record by stating we did not have any US aircraft in that area on the date and time in question."

It is evident that both the US and the island of Taiwan have realized the severity of such an act, and whether true or false, US military airplanes must not fly over the island of Taiwan. It is an ironclad principle, and also a bottom line, observers noted.

The urgent denial in contradiction with previous information shows the US is not ready, and that US President Donald Trump cannot afford a major episode, as conflict with China could bring about too many uncertainties in his sprint to get reelected, Song Zhongping, a military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Sunday.

It will take nothing more than the DPP authority's return to the 1992 Consensus and complete giving-up of the notion of island separation to disperse such specter of war across the Taiwan Straits, Yang Lixian, a research fellow at the Beijing-based Research Center of Cross-Straits Relations, told the Global Times on Sunday.

It is the separatist stand the DPP has been taking as well as its playing along with US attempts to divert attention from its own internal chaos by using the "Taiwan card" that summons an increasingly possible cross-Straits conflict, Yang noted.

The Chinese mainland's stance over the matter is constant and clear - reunifying Taiwan by force is not what the mainland wishes to see, but it is an inevitable option for the PLA, if the Taiwan authority continues to complicate the cross-Straits situation, observers warned.

On October 14, 15 and 19, aircraft from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) reportedly made incursions into the "airspace of Taiwan." The number of PLA aircraft "intrusions" into Taiwan "airspace" in October appeared to have increased significantly, local media reported. 

On Saturday night, five PLA planes were operating near the Taiwan Straits, Taiwan secessionist green camper media Liberty Time Net reported on Sunday, citing a PLA warplane flight tracking fan page. 

Senior Colonel Zhang Chunhui, spokesperson of the PLA Eastern Theater Command, has said in a statement on October 15 that Taiwan and its affiliated islands are a sacred and inalienable part of Chinese territory, and Chinese military patrols in the region are completely legitimate and lawful, which is also a necessary action to be taken in response to the current security situation across the Taiwan Straits and to safeguard national sovereignty.