Although Tesla and SpaceX chief executive officer Elon Musk donated Starlink platforms to Ukraine following its invasion by Russia, Musk has drawn condemnation after a misguided proposal for a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. He was also accused of blocking Starlink in areas of occupied Ukraine.
On Oct. 14, CNN reported that “SpaceX has warned the Pentagon that it may stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicks in tens of millions of dollars per month.”
This caused some panic among Ukrainian officials. On Monday last week, following a public backlash, Musk said Starlink would not be turned off regardless of US military funding.
This back-and-forth farce regarding the operation of Starlink for Ukraine raises serious concerns.
Musk — neither trained nor elected — is in an immensely powerful and influential position where he could do serious damage to the Ukrainian war effort if his subversive rhetoric goes unchecked.
For instance, Musk wrote on Twitter that “Crimea [is] formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).”
Moscow lauded Musk for the tweet. It not only advanced pro-Russia propaganda, but also ignored and oversimplified the intricate history between Crimea, Ukraine and Russia.
It is a historical fact that Crimea was never part of the Russian Federation prior to its illegal annexation in 2014.
The 1994 Budapest Memorandum — signed by then-US president Bill Clinton, then-British prime minister John Major, then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin and then-Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma — promised to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which includes Crimea.
Starlink is undoubtedly crucial for the Ukrainians in this conflict. Starlink is a satellite Internet constellation with thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit.
Satellite Internet service with low latency and high bandwidth is essential in a modern conflict where existing communication infrastructure can be targeted. The destruction of satellites is much more costly and difficult. Only a small number of weapons systems are designed to target satellites.
The defense of Taiwan would also require satellite Internet service as a contingency, but with an unpredictable narcissist with a clear conflict of interest — judging from Musk’s business investments in China — in charge of Starlink, Taiwan must look to other services or develop its own.
Minister of Digital Development Audrey Tang (唐鳳) announced efforts to secure satellite Internet backup over the next few years. The selection process should account for the qualifications of the satellite Internet companies and also the people running them.
Taiwan should maintain a level of control over these satellites to prevent the disabling of Internet services from the company’s end. This necessitates technological transfers to Taiwan in the operation of these satellites.
Taiwan should also consider diversifying its satellite Internet services to lessen the effectiveness of cyberattacks. Viasat, Ukraine’s primary satellite Internet service prior to the war, was targeted by Russia in an attack just one hour prior to its invasion on Feb. 24.
Taiwan’s decision to invest in satellite Internet provides a great opportunity to expand the nation’s space industry, to improve military command and control capabilities, and provide services for underserved communities.
The selection process must prevent Chinese infiltration or espionage, while mitigating unpredictable changes in affiliations from foreign service providers.
Linus Chiou studies physics and history at the University of Virginia.
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to