China is sending balloons over Taiwan as a warning against the presidential election result and in an effort to weaken the nation’s sovereignty, US daily The Hill reported on Monday.
Frequently sending balloons over Taiwan is part of China’s increasing effort to “coerce and intimidate” the nation after voters “flouted Beijing’s warning” about Vice President William Lai (賴清德), who won the presidential election on Jan. 13, the paper said.
Chinese spy balloons flew into Taiwanese airspace almost daily before and after the election, it said.
Photo: Reuters
Beijing’s actions are a “signal about increased surveillance,” but tensions are unlikely to further escalate, it quoted Kristen Gunness, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, as saying.
“Balloons are a big deal, but it’s not enough of one to be able to — especially if Taiwan isn’t doing anything about it — to provoke a conflict or crisis,” she said.
Beijing is facing an ailing economy at home and would like to avoid stoking tensions with Washington, which might stop it from taking aggressive actions “this year or in the immediate future” unless it is provoked by events such as Taiwan declaring independence, she said.
However, China would continue “what it’s been doing, which is basically conduct air and maritime operations around Taiwan to show that they can control the maritime and airspace,” she said.
Other experts expressed graver concerns over the possibility that Beijing might launch military actions against Taiwan, the paper said, citing US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral John Aquilino, who predicted that China would step up its aggressive behavior after the election.
The Chinese spy balloons are used globally, but they “are unlikely to be practically useful for surveillance” in Taiwan, where China already has eyes and ears, it said.
Hung Ho-fung (孔誥烽), a political economy professor and East Asia expert at Johns Hopkins University, said the balloons are “part of a Chinese tactic to diminish Taiwanese independence.”
Beijing aims to “squeeze the airspace and then blur the line” between two sides across the Taiwan Strait “as much as possible to establish a kind of status quo” where no clear boundary exists, the article quoted him as saying.
The article also quoted an analysis released on Thursday by US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War, which said that China is attempting to “normalize using balloons in tandem with other aerial and naval” air defense identification zone incursions “to wear down Taiwan’s threat awareness.”
Sending balloons is unlikely to push the US or Taiwan to any action, it said.
Colonel Wang Chia-chun (王家駿), deputy head of the Ministry of National Defense’s joint operations planning section, earlier this month said that the military would not shoot down the balloons, as it would be a waste of ammunition and give Beijing the reaction it wants.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS