Taiwan has stepped up national security measures, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday, after a former Chinese navy captain was arrested for illegally entering the nation on a motorboat.
“National security cannot be neglected for a minute,” he said, adding that security units had been instructed to “immediately strengthen protective measures.”
Coast guard personnel arrested the man, surnamed Ruan (阮), on Sunday after his boat collided with other vessels at a ferry terminal on the Tamsui River (淡水河) in the north. Before that, he reportedly sailed the vessel into a harbor near the mouth of the river.
Illustration: Wu Jen-chieh, Taipei Times
Ruan is a retired member of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy who had served as a captain, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said yesterday.
Ruan was reported to have said he wanted to defect to Taiwan after having made anti-Chinese government comments on messaging apps.
However, Ruan looks different from previous “defectors” from China, Kuan said.
Photo: CNA
“In the past, Chinese defectors looked like they were hastily recruited by the Chinese government to carry out the task. However, [Ruan] looks more polite and was dressed more decently,” she said, adding that national security officials would investigate.
“Judging by the 18 cases involving Chinese [attempting to enter Taiwan illegally] in the past year, we do not rule out that it is a test that Beijing is conducting, because they all said they came to Taiwan to pursue a life of freedom,” she said.
Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said he met with the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday, as the boat had been allowed to gain access to one of the nation’s harbors.
“The defense of Tamsui River estuary would be key when deploying troops during wartime. However, during peacetime the coast guard and military work together to protect our territorial waters. The coast guard uses its inter-shore radar system to regulate marine activities, and the military serves as backup,” Koo said.
Asked whether the incident was part of China’s “gray zone” tactics aimed at testing the limits of the government, Koo said the ministry has not ruled that out.
“We have already included gray zone warfare in our annual table-top exercises. We need to ascertain whether this incident is part of China’s persistent gray zone tactics and stay on high alert for such a possibility. We will also study how to handle the unauthorized entry of a single Chinese vessel,” he said.
The CGA yesterday told a news conference that coast guard personnel had made mistakes that enabled the Chinese motorboat to cruise all the way to the harbor.
“The radar system operator had locked on to the Chinese speedboat 6 nautical miles [11km] off the coast of Tamsui District (淡水), but they mistakenly thought the boat was a Taiwanese fishing vessel returning to harbor,” the CGA said.
“Even though the operator notified the second fishing port in Tamsui and the CGA security inspection station in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), they did not ask a coast guard patrol boat to inspect the Chinese boat,” it said.
“The security inspection station in Bali also failed to immediately notify patrolling coast guard personnel to search and stop the boat after it verified that the boat was not a Taiwanese fishing boat,” the CGA said, adding that the personnel at fault would be held accountable.
To prevent radar system operators making errors, the CGA said it is considering using the radar system in conjunction with an inter-shore intelligent monitoring system, which uses an infrared thermal imaging camera.
It said that it would gradually increase the use of drones to help it inspect vessels and encourage Taiwanese fishing boats to install an automatic identification system.
Coast guard personnel would be better trained to coordinate with the military, the CGA added.
Additional reporting by AFP
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
REMINDER: Of the 6.78 million doses of flu vaccine Taiwan purchased for this flu season, about 200,000 are still available, an official said, following Big S’ death As news broke of the death of Taiwanese actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as Big S (大S), from severe flu complications, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and doctors yesterday urged people at high risk to get vaccinated and be alert to signs of severe illness. Hsu’s family yesterday confirmed that the actress died on a family holiday in Japan due to pneumonia during the Lunar New Year holiday. CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) told an impromptu news conference that hospital visits for flu-like illnesses from Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 reached 162,352 — the highest
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
RSS