Although the military is preparing to withdraw troops from most of the outlying islands of the frontline Kinmen group in the coming months, the Coast Guard Admin-istration is not yet ready to take over the protection of the islands, an official with the administration said yesterday.
The coast guard does not have enough personnel and equipment, especially ships, to maintain the security of these islands or safeguard surrounding territorial waters, the coast guard official, who is a member of the public relations office, said.
"The Coast Guard Administration has not been officially assigned the task of taking over these islands. Frankly speaking, it is beyond our capability," the official said.
"The Kinmen police can do the job as well as we can. They might be better suited for the task," he said.
The six islands in the Kinmen group include Tatan, Erhtan, Menghuyu, Tungting, Peiting and Shihyu, which are scheduled to be demilitarized and opened for tourism early next year.
The Executive Yuan announced its plan to demilitarize the six islands in August.
The military initially did not support the plan, saying the six outlying islands are still very important in the defense of Kinmen County. The islands are heavily armed with weapons of various kinds, including cannons, tanks and missiles. They could be used to reduce the Chinese military's firepower in case of an attack.
The military's combat plans have met with opposition after calls from the public that the islands be opened for tourism.
Tatan has gained most media exposure after a visit by President Chen Shui-bian (
The wall has become a tourist attraction. Although civilians are not allowed to land on the island, tourists from both sides of the Taiwan Strait have undertaken boat trips to have a look at the wall from the sea.
Tatan has the most possibilities for tourism. Most other islands in the group are valuable only as military outposts and are relatively inaccessible to tourists.
The demilitarization of the islands is expected to save the military a lot of money, but this burden will be passed on to the coast guard. The military now guards each of these islands with a minimum force of 30 soldiers. The coast guard does not have that many people at its disposal.
The coast guard would probably only be able to assign ten people to each island, a defense official said.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS