In an unprecedented move, Taiwan's military yesterday opened two top secret Air Force bases for the first time to the media, removing the veil of secrecy that had shrouded the sites for years.
The two military sites are the Chiashan (
The two bases are the most important military locations on the island.
Chiashan serves as the command post of the country's last remaining counter-attack forces in the event of a war and Hengshan is the country's top military command center during both war and peace time.
The construction of the Chiashan base, which began in 1985, took seven years to complete and cost about NT$27.2 billion, officials at Chiashan said. Upon its completion, it was said to be the largest base of its kind in the Far East.
The construction of Chiashan included the hollowing out of a mountain to accommodate fighter planes and attack helicopters from around the country during times of war. The entire base is essentially a shelter for planes, including Mirage 2000-5s and US-made F-16s. The number of planes the site can accommodate at any one time, however, is still classified by the military for national security reasons.
During yesterday's media tour, two French-made Mirage 2000-5 jet fighters took off from exits in the hollowed-out mountain base, performing dry-runs of maneuvers that mimic real-life military confrontations.
The Hengshan Command Post was another ambitious project by the military. Construction began in 1960, 11 years after the KMT government established itself in Taiwan.
The project, which involved the excavation of a mountain in the Taipei suburb of Tachih, was not completed until 1982. It serves as the highest-level military command center in both war and peace as well as an operational center for the government during war.
It features a high-tech command center, which receives real-time information about enemy troop movements and can order immediate responses.
The military demonstrated real-time information it had obtained regarding the crossing of the median line of the Taiwan Strait by Chinese jet fighters on July 25 and July 30.
Officials at the center said they have taken appropriate measures to prepare for attacks from the mainland.
"The Chinese planes were spotted and tracked from take-off. Before the planes reached the middle of the Strait, our fighter planes and anti-aircraft missile sites were already on alert," an official said.
Chief of the General Staff Gen. Tang Yao-ming (
The base also provides space for major governmental agencies to operate in times of a war, including offices for the president and the Cabinet.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS