Taiwan is to go ahead with a plan to create a cyberarmy that is to be the fourth branch of the armed forces, Minister of National Defense Feng Shih-kuan (馮世寬) said yesterday.
“This is the main difference in defense policy between the past government and this government. It is important to set up the cyberarmy as the fourth branch of the armed forces,” he told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee in Taipei.
“It is our responsibility to attain this goal,” he said.
In terms of military strategic planning, Feng said the cyberarmy would engage in asymmetric digital warfare and would be a deterrent against enemy forces.
In May last year, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) outlined the formation of a cyberarmy as the fourth branch of the armed forces in its Defense Policy Blue Paper.
The proposal called for the recruitment of cybersecurity experts and young computer professionals on a budget of NT$1 billion (US$30.7 million at today’s exchange rates), employing about 6,000 personnel, and to set up a “cyberarmy command headquarters” that would integrate the functions and resources from ministry-run “communications, electronics and information,” “military intelligence and surveillance,” “digital warfare command” and “communications development” offices.
In other news, Feng was asked about a retired Taiwanese military intelligence officer who went missing in China after being detained by Chinese authorities for questioning on Sunday last week.
Feng said he was not aware of the matter and could not give details.
According to a report in the Chinese-language Next Magazine, former Military Intelligence Bureau officer Teng Ping-chieh (鄧秉傑), 56, was detained by Chinese officials while on a group tour in China’s Jiangsi Province.
His Taiwanese companions on the tour had not heard from him since, the Next Magazine report said.
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) officials yesterday said that they have been working on Teng’s case after being notified by his family and the Taiwanese travel agency that organized the tour.
The foundation has offered legal assistance, while trying to obtain more information from the Chinese government, it said.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
RSS