The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday said it spotted 35 Chinese military aircraft, including fighters and bombers, flying to the south of Taiwan proper on the way to exercises in the Pacific, a second consecutive day it has reported such activities.
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not respond to a request for comment on the missions, reported just days before tomorrow’s US presidential election.
The US is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. Its arms sales to Taipei include a US$2 billion missile system announced last month.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
The MND said that from 9am yesterday, it had detected 37 Chinese military aircraft, including J-16 fighters, nuclear-capable H-6 bombers and drones.
Of those, 35 flew to Taiwan’s southwest, south and southeast into the western Pacific to carry out long-range training, the ministry said, adding that it had dispatched its own forces to keep watch.
On Saturday, the ministry said China had carried out another “joint combat readiness patrol” with warships and aircraft near Taiwan.
In related news, a source yesterday said that the first sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) purchased from the US in 2020 and 2022 arrived in Taiwan last month ahead of schedule.
The military purchased 29 sets of HIMARS in two procurements, with the first 11 sets originally scheduled to arrive between the end of this year and the beginning of next year, and the remainder in 2026.
The 58th Artillery Command of the 10th Army Corps stationed in central Taiwan is training with the platforms, the source said.
Taiwan had originally sought to purchase M109A6 howitzer artillery weapons from the US, but later worked out a deal to purchase HIMARS after the howitzers became unavailable.
Along with the HIMARS, the procurement included 84 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), 864 precision rockets, two sets of training simulators and other ancillary equipment.
The HIMARS are to be operated by the army, while the air force’s Air Defense and Missile Command would continue to operate domestically produced Hsiung Feng (“Brave Wind,” 雄風) missile systems. The ATACMS would be deployed based on assessments by the General Staff Headquarters units.
During an interview Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the state-run Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that Taiwan would use two types of munitions with the HIMARS: a traditional rocket with a range of 50km to 70km and ATACMS missiles with a range of 300km.
The military could possibly acquire Precision Strike Missiles with a range of nearly 500km, he said.
The sale of the 300km-range missiles to Taiwan signaled mutual trust between Taipei and Washington, which would facilitate future procurements, he said.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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