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.
Hong Kong-based American singer-songwriter Khalil Fong (方大同) has passed away at the age of 41, Fong’s record label confirmed yesterday. “With unwavering optimism in the face of a relentless illness for five years, Khalil Fong gently and gracefully bid farewell to this world on the morning of February 21, 2025, stepping into the next realm of existence to carry forward his purpose and dreams,” Fu Music wrote on the company’s official Facebook page. “The music and graphic novels he gifted to the world remain an eternal testament to his luminous spirit, a timeless treasure for generations to come,” it said. Although Fong’s
China’s military buildup in the southern portion of the first island chain poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, a defense analyst warned. Writing in a bulletin on the National Defense and Security Research’s Web site on Thursday, Huang Tsung-ting (黃宗鼎) said that China might choke off Taiwan’s energy supply without it. Beginning last year, China entrenched its position in the southern region of the first island chain, often with Russia’s active support, he said. In May of the same year, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) force consisting of a Type 054A destroyer, Type 055 destroyer,
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
Taiwan is planning to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based X-ray imaging to customs clearance points over the next four years to curb the smuggling of contraband, a Customs Administration official said. The official on condition of anonymity said the plan would cover meat products, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, large bundles of banknotes and certain agricultural produce. Taiwan began using AI image recognition systems in July 2021. This year, generative AI — a subset of AI which uses generative models to produce data — would be used to train AI models to produce realistic X-ray images of contraband, the official
RSS