People should not make “unnecessary interpretations” regarding China’s announcement on Thursday that it is to conduct live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday next week, as the statement is most likely “amplified” rhetoric aimed at terrorizing Taiwanese, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said yesterday.
DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), a member of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign and National Defense Committee, said that the drill would be a routine exercise and that it would not be particularly large.
People should not overreact to China’s statement, as the Chinese government obviously wanted to terrorize Taiwan by trumpeting news of the drill on the Global Times, where it described the planned drill as a move to deter Taiwanese independence forces and counter the partnership between Taiwan and the US in the power struggle in the Taiwan Strait, Lo said in response to media queries for remarks.
Asked about former vice president Annette Lu’s (呂秀蓮) remarks that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) should cancel her diplomatic trip to Swaziland and instead focus on “escalating tensions” in the Taiwan Strait, Lo said he was not convinced that tensions had escalated.
He likewise did not believe that the government should rashly cancel the trip, as doing so might cause the public to panic, thus playing into Beijing’s hands, he added.
While Tsai denied that her boarding the Keelung destroyer to observe a drill off the waters of Yilan’s Suao Township (蘇澳) was a response to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) inspecting a large drill in the South China Sea that began on Thursday, DPP Legislator Tsai Shih-ying (蔡適應) said China might want to use next week’s drills as a response to Taiwan’s military exercises.
Considering the drill’s proximity to the M503 flight route and three accompanying routes that Beijing arbitrarily launched in January, the exercises are risky and contradicts the image of a “steadily growing peace-loving nation” that China has been trying to project, Tsai Shih-ying said.
The location that China has picked for the drill is very close to commercial air routes, increasing the risk of shells accidentally hitting passing civilian boats or aircraft, he said.
China’s announcement is like “slapping itself in the face” as it unilaterally decided to launch the air routes, which means that it must now shoulder the responsibility for any negative consequences, he said.
“The Taiwan Strait is only about 200km wide. There are other locations that would be more suitable for China to conduct its military drills, where it would have enough space to test the precision of its cannons without disrupting traffic,” Tsai Shih-ying said.
Separately yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) called on agencies in charge of national security to take pre-emptive measures regarding the drill, while urging Tsai Ing-wen’s administration to swiftly clear its communication channel with Beijing.
Given the icy cross-strait relations, any accident during the drill could evolve into something unimaginable, she said.
Tsai Ing-wen, whose party has total administrative power, should not always shift the responsibility of poor cross-strait ties to Beijing, but should proactively devise measures to solve the standoff, she said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS