The Presidential Office yesterday confirmed that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to meet US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California today. Meanwhile, 20 Chinese military aircraft and three warships were detected in areas around Taiwan.
The confirmation followed an announcement by McCarthy’s office that the speaker is to host a bipartisan meeting with Tsai at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley today (tomorrow morning Taipei time).
Tsai is in Belize on the second leg of her Central America tour that also took her to Guatemala. On her return trip, she is scheduled to make a stopover in Los Angeles.
Photo: AP
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning (毛寧) told a daily news briefing yesterday that Beijing “will closely follow the developments and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said that Taiwan has never been part of China, and that Beijing’s recent criticism has become increasingly “absurd.”
“Taiwan, the Republic of China, is a sovereign country, and has the right to make its own determination in developing relations with other countries in the world,” it said in a statement. “It does not accept interference or suppression by any country for any reason, and will not limit itself because of intimidation or interference.”
Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Defense said Chinese military aircraft were spotted 20 times in Taiwan’s general vicinity from 6am on Monday to 6am yesterday.
One of them, a high-altitude, long-range uncrewed aerial vehicle Harbin BZK-005 used for reconnaissance, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, the defense ministry said in a statement.
Eight flights, seven of which were J-16 fighters and one a Y-8 anti-submarine warfare plane, crossed into the southwestern part of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, it said.
The defense ministry did not release the flight paths of the other planes or identify or disclose the path of the three warships spotted in areas around Taiwan.
It added that the military scrambled combat air and naval patrols, and deployed defense missile systems to track the Chinese military aircraft and warships.
The latest sortie of Chinese warplanes and ships was generally in line — in terms of flight numbers and where they went — with similar sorties in the past few weeks.
Additional reporting by AP
GEARING UP: An invasion would be difficult and would strain China’s forces, but it has conducted large-scale training supporting an invasion scenario, the report said China increased its military pressure on Taiwan last year and took other steps in preparation for a potential invasion, an annual report published by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday showed. “Throughout 2023, Beijing continued to erode longstanding norms in and around Taiwan by employing a range of pressure tactics against Taiwan,” the report said, which is titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2024.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force, if perceived as necessary by Beijing, while simultaneously deterring, delaying or denying
PEACEFUL RESOLUTION: A statement issued following a meeting between Australia and Britain reiterated support for Taiwan and opposition to change in the Taiwan Strait Canada should support the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s destiny according to the will of Taiwanese, Canadian lawmakers said in a resolution marking the second anniversary of that nation’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Monday. The Canadian House of Commons committee on Canada-Chinese relations made the comment as part of 34 recommendations for the new edition of the strategy, adding that Ottawa should back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, first published in October 2022, emphasized that the region’s security, trade, human rights, democracy and environmental protection would play a crucial role in shaping Canada’s future. The strategy called for Canada to deepen
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
LEAP FORWARD: The new tanks are ‘decades more advanced than’ the army’s current fleet and would enable it to compete with China’s tanks, a source said A shipment of 38 US-made M1A2T Abrams tanks — part of a military procurement package from the US — arrived at the Port of Taipei early yesterday. The vehicles are the first batch of 108 tanks and other items that then-US president Donald Trump announced for Taiwan in 2019. The Ministry of National Defense at the time allocated NT$40.5 billion (US$1.25 billion) for the purchase. To accommodate the arrival of the tanks, the port suspended the use of all terminals and storage area machinery from 6pm last night until 7am this morning. The tanks are expected to be deployed at the army’s training
RSS