Taiwan denied yesterday having halted a plan to upgrade its domestically made Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF) fighter aircraft, saying the fate of the plan would be decided next month.
“All the Ministry of National Defense’s plans must be submitted to the Cabinet for approval. The Cabinet thinks some parts of our plan [to upgrade the IDFs] need to be clarified, so the ministry has asked the air force to send a report to the Cabinet,” ministry spokeswoman Lisa Chi (池玉蘭) told the Central News Agency.
“The Cabinet has not decided if the plan should be halted yet. As far as I know, the Cabinet will not make a decision until the end of August,” Chih said, responding to a newspaper report that claimed Taiwan had suspended the upgrade to avoid undermining warming ties with Beijing.
On July 14, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) quoted an unnamed military source as saying that the Cabinet had instructed the ministry to halt the Hsiang Chan Project next year.
The paper reported that the Cabinet had said it would still allocate next year’s NT$1 billion (US$32 million) budget for the Hsiang Chan Project, but that the Air Force should use the money for other purposes.
Theaters and institutions in Taiwan have received 28 threatening e-mails, including bomb threats, since a documentary critical of China began being screened across the nation last month, the National Security Bureau said yesterday. The actions are part of China’s attempts to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty, it said. State Organs (國有器官) documents allegations that Chinese government officials engage in organ harvesting and other illegal activities. From last month to Friday last week, 28 incidents have been reported of theaters or institutions receiving threats, including bomb and shooting threats, if they did not stop showing the documentary, the bureau said. Although the threats were not carried out,
‘GRAY ZONE’ TACTICS: China continues to build up its military capacity while regularly deploying jets and warships around Taiwan, with the latest balloon spotted on Sunday The US is drawing up contingency plans for military deployments in Japan and the Philippines in case of a Taiwan emergency, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported. They would be incorporated in a first joint operation plan to be formulated in December, Kyodo reported late on Sunday, citing sources familiar with Japan-US relations. A US Marine Corps regiment that possesses High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — a light multiple rocket launcher — would be deployed along the Nansei Island chain stretching from Kyushu to Yonaguni near Taiwan, Kyodo said. According to US military guidelines for dispatching marines in small formations to several locations,
As Taiwan celebrated its baseball team’s victory in the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s Premier12 on Sunday, how politicians referred to the team in their congratulatory messages reflected the nation’s political divide. Taiwan, competing under the name Chinese Taipei (中華台北隊), made history with its first-ever Premier12 championship after beating Japan 4-0 at the Tokyo Dome. Right after the game, President William Lai (賴清德) congratulated the team via a post on his Facebook page. Besides the players, Lai also lauded the team’s coaching and medical staff, and the fans cheering for them in Tokyo or watching the live broadcast, saying that “every
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday confirmed that Chinese students visiting Taiwan at the invitation of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation were almost all affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During yesterday’s meeting convened by the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) asked whether the visit was a way to spread China’s so-called “united front” rhetoric, to which MAC Deputy Ministry Shen You-chung (沈有忠) responded with the CCP comment. The MAC noticed that the Chinese individuals visiting Taiwan, including those in sports, education, or religion, have had increasingly impressive backgrounds, demonstrating that the
RSS