While the government has consented to China’s inauguration of a new commercial flight route near the middle of the Taiwan Strait starting tomorrow, opponents continued to rail against the plan yesterday, leading to the adjournment of a regular legislative session.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) at about noon declared the question-and-answer session with Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) adjourned until Tuesday, following hours of fruitless talks among party caucuses on the demands made by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU).
The TSU demanded that the implementation of the M503 route be put off until information regarding the negotiations about the route between Taiwan and China that took place earlier this month is deliberated and approved by the legislature, TSU Legislator Lai Cheng-chang (賴振昌) said.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
Should China insist that it will start using the route, the government should indefinitely suspend any further negotiations with China because the move would be tantamount to infringement into Taiwan’s airspace, Lai said.
Cross-strait talks are scheduled to be held on Tuesday in Beijing, the 10th round of talks to conclude a trade in goods agreement.
The government recently gave its consent to the proposed route after Beijing agreed to revise its original plan, announced in January, by moving the route westward by 6 nautical miles (11km) and delaying the adoption of three feeder routes: W121, W122 and W123.
However, many in Taiwan remain concerned about the security risks, as the route still comes as close as 10.2 nautical miles to the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
In addition to the government saying it understands that the congestion of China’s A470 route warrants the opening of a new route, National Security Bureau Director-General Lee Shying-jow (李翔宙) on Thursday said that the implementation of the M503 route would force China’s military jets to patrol farther from Taiwan and thus give Taiwan more leeway on defense.
Lee’s argument and that of Chinese Ministry of National Defense official Geng Yansheng (耿雁生), who on Thursday described the route as an “air passage of peace,” suggested that Beijing did not designate the M503 unilaterally, but in collusion with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said yesterday.
When TSU lawmakers occupied the podium to boycott the session, dozens of activists broke into the legislative compound in a surprise protest against the government’s handling of the issue, but they were stopped outside the building as security guards quickly pulled down a steel door.
The protesters shouted: “Abolish M503” and other slogans denouncing the government’s concessions as a “forfeiture of the nation’s sovereignty.”
They were forcibly removed from the legislative complex by police.
Activists staged a similar protest on Thursday at the offices of the Mainland Affairs Council.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
RSS