High supporter numbers, leaks in the police department and assistance from former police officers are enabling protesters to run effective “guerrilla” campaigns, despite increased security around President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), pension reform opponents said yesterday, adding that “mobile human wall” tactics to keep them away from Tsai’s motorcade would not work.
Protesters have promised to “shadow” Tsai following the passage of pension reforms last month and have had some success in breaking through an increased police presence around the president, including briefly halting her motorcade outside National Defense University in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) on Thursday last week.
“There are only two roads in and out of the university, so where could she go? The police cannot change the roads,” said Keng Chi-wen (耿繼文), a former director of the National Police Agency’s Internal Affairs Office, who has been one of the most prominent former police officers participating in protests.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Protesters stood along both sides of Zhongyang N Road, moving in front of Tsai’s motorcade as it approached the university entrance before being pushed aside by police.
An increased police presence and barricades around Tsai to keep protesters from getting too close when she arrives at a destination means that “guerrilla” tactics have been used to get close to her, with former police officers who are familiar with presidential security helping show protesters how to congregate and scatter along potential motorcade routes, Keng said.
“We are experts, so it is easy for us to predict the president’s route and backup route,” he said, adding that protesters also often receive leaked information from police.
Photo: Wang Chun-chi, Taipei Times
“We can make quick observations and then divide our forces along potential routes, so there is a chance of blocking her regardless of which way they drive,” he said.
“It might be different if Tsai was just a movie star who could come and go quietly, but presidential security leaves an extremely obvious footprint,” Taiwan Policemen Association executive director Chen Chih-chieh (陳志傑) said, adding that protesters relay signs of police reconnaissance and barricading via social media to predict the president’s movements and mobilize quickly.
“There are different standard operating procedures for the president compared with the vice president or a minister, so we can predict who is coming based on police preparations,” Chen said.
Reports that police plan to begin deploying a “mobile human wall” to counter protesters’ tactics drew disparaging remarks.
“Even if they block off one point, we will just catch Tsai later on,” Keng said.
“Even if the wall succeeds, the sight of policemen being forced to run around would still be embarrassing to Tsai, which is our objective,” Chen said.
It is possible Tsai might be faced with a car suddenly “breaking down” in front of her motorcade, Yunlin County Retired Police Officers Association executive director Lai Kun-yu (賴坤柚) said.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
China used fake LinkedIn profiles to harvest sensitive data from NATO and EU institutions by soliciting information from staff, a European security source said on Friday. The operation, allegedly orchestrated by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, targeted dozens of employees at the military alliance or EU organizations through fictitious accounts, the source said, confirming reports in French and Belgian media. Posing as recruiters on the online professional networking platform, Chinese spies would initially request paid reports before later soliciting non-public or even classified information. One particularly active fake profile used the name “Kevin Zhang,” claiming to be the head
RSS