2027 PREVIEW? How China is masking drone flights in potential Taiwan rehearsal.

A large Chinese military drone has conducted regular flights over the South China Sea in recent months while transmitting false transponder signals that made it appear to be other aircraft, including a sanctioned Belarusian cargo plane and a British Typhoon fighter jet.

Military attaches and security analysts scrutinising the operations say the flights represent a step-change in China’s grey-zone tactics in the contested South China Sea and appear to be testing possible decoy capabilities in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Since August, at least 23 flights have been logged under the call sign YILO4200, a known long-endurance Chinese military drone, but the aircraft transmitted registration numbers of other aircraft, according to Reuters analysis of data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24.

The flight paths often head east from the Chinese province of Hainan towards the Philippines, near the disputed Paracel Islands, and down Vietnam’s coast, the flight analysis showed.

Here’s the reference (although there are countless versions of it, going back several years) from the headline: Why does 2027 Keep Coming up About the Chinese Military? “From the Davidson Window to other prognostications, the window of greatest possibility for war with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is generally seen as opening in 2027.”