Though the US has warned Taiwan twice about the possibility of a terrorist attack, Taiwan is still unprepared for such an event.
As a partner in the US anti-terrorism campaign, Taiwan could be a target for international terrorists among the Southeast Asian countries. But while the government has actively voiced its support of the US anti-terrorism campaign since the Sept. 11 attacks, it hasn't allotted any money to combat terrorism in Taiwan nor has it passed any regulations governing the prevention or prosecution of terrorist activity and coordination among the related departments is weak.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
PFP Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) said that "All of the government departments related to the anti-terrorism campaign are unaware of what other departments are doing. Promoting coordination among different departments is the most urgent mission for the government."
FILE PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
According to a poll conducted by the China Times, one of Taiwan's leading Chinese-language dailies, 40 percent of the respondents said that they are worried about a terrorist attack on Taiwan, while 46 percent of the respondents said that they are not confident of the government's anti-terrorism preparation. The poll was conducted on Oct. 16, four days after the Bali bomb incident. The survey was conducted by telephone and had 800 respondents.
Five main government departments -- the National Security Council (NSC), the Ministry of National Defense (MND), the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) -- are coordinating the nation's anti-terrorism efforts.
PFP Legislator Shen Chih-hwei (
The NSC is in charge of coordinating the four ministries, but it has been failed to do so, Lin said. The MOI's National Police Administration, National Fire Administration and Bureau of Immigration are in charge of safeguarding domestic security, while the MOJ is collecting intelligence information and the MOFA is working on cooperating with the international community.
Presidential Secretary-General Chen Shih-meng (
At a PFP-organized breakfast Friday, representatives from the defense ministry and information ministry both said that, in the event of an emergency, the military and police forces will cooperate.
"It's not even clear which department would be entitled to give orders to the two ministries if an emergency occurred," Lin said.
The information ministry's 70,000 policemen are beefing up security measures at the airports, bus and railway stations, nuclear power plants, diplomatic bases, sea ports and places frequently visited by foreigners.
The justice ministry is planning to introduce a new regulation to counter terrorism, which would entitle authorities to investigate and arrest anyone suspected of engaging in terrorist activities, and might authorize the government to establish an independent department devoted to counter-terrorism.
According to government officials, Taiwan was warned twice of possible attacks over the past two months. The MOFA's Houston office in the US received an e-mail on Sept. 23, warning that Taiwan could be one of the potential targets in the Asia-Pacific area for a terrorist attack.
Deputy Director of the NSB, Hu Cheng-chiou (胡鎮球), on the other hand, said numerous intelligence sources suggested that Taiwan was named as a target for a terrorist attack on Oct. 7.
"Terrorism is not so far away from Taiwan. Both the society and the government should have a sense of immediate threat," Lin said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
RSS