The Chinese military’s record number of incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) has undermined peace in the region, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, warning Beijing against further actions that could accidentally spark conflict across the Taiwan Strait.
“Chinese aggression has severely undermined regional peace and stability,” Tsai said at the weekly meeting of the Democratic Progressive Party’s Central Standing Committee. “Beijing must refrain from going too far and accidentally sparking conflict across the Strait.”
A total of 149 Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s ADIZ over four days — 38 on Friday, 39 on Saturday, 16 on Sunday and 56 on Monday — prompting expressions of concern from countries such as the US, Australia and Japan.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Ministry of National Defense
Germany on Monday also weighed in, with German Foreign Office deputy spokesman Christofer Burger expressing Berlin’s “great concern” over the rising tensions between the two sides of the Strait.
Beijing’s disregard for regional security and stability, and its provocative aircraft incursions have met with serious concern and condemnations from the international community, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said in a statement.
Germany is a like-minded partner, with peoples in both countries maintaining solid friendship and close exchanges, Ou said, adding that Taiwan would be happy to engage in talks on regional security issues with Germany and other democratic partners to defend peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region.
In other developments, the military yesterday publicly confirmed for the first time the existence of the “Yun Feng” (雲峰, Cloud Peak) medium-range surface-to-surface missile, which has been under development since the 1990s.
Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) mentioned the missile during a joint meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign and National Defense Committee and Finance Committee.
When asked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) about the development and capabilities of the Yun Feng missile, Chiu was unwilling to reveal any details, saying only that the military is still “working on it.”
It was the first time the Ministry of National Defense has publicly acknowledged the existence of the missile, which is said to have a range of up to 1,500km.
Local media speculated last year that the missile was tested in April last year, but the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology refused to comment on the issue.
The Yun Feng missile has reportedly been under development since the 1990s and is designed to strike land-based targets inside China, local and foreign media reports have said.
Capable of hitting strategic targets such as airports, harbors and command centers in inland China, the Yun Feng missile is a key part of Taiwan’s asymmetric warfare plan to erode China’s combat capabilities, said Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a senior researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS