The house where I live in Chiayi is just a few kilometers away from one of the country's major air force bases, with F-16s practicing take-offs and landings almost seven days a week, and flying high above the southwestern plains here with ear-piercing roars.
I don't mind the sound of the military jets taking off early in the morning or even at night, Saturday and Sunday mornings, too, because I know that Taiwan's air force is playing a vital role in the nation's defense.
But the daily sounds of the F-16s from the nearby air force base remind me of my younger days in my native Massachusetts, during the old days of the Cold War between the US and the USSR. My home there was close to an important US military base for massive B-52 bombers and other kinds of military jets.
As a teenager, I knew that if Russia attacked the US mainland, this local air force base -- Westover Air Force Base, it was called -- would be one of the main targets for Moscow's missiles and bombs, and I sometimes had nightmares, like many people in those days did, about an imagined USSR attack.
My father used to do some part-time work at Westover Air Force Base, and occasionally he asked me to accompany him in the car during the drive to the base. When he would go inside the base. I would stay in the car, reading a book or doing my homework, and gaze out at the huge military aircraft on the runways.
When I hear the F-16s in Chiayi whizzing by, sometimes a single plane against the blue sky, and sometimes two, three or four planes flying together, I remember those old days during the Cold War in my hometown in Massachusetts, and I think to myself: "Let's hope that a war would never break out between Taiwan and China! Chiayi would be one of the main targets, of course!"
Personally, I don't think there will be a war between China and Taiwan, but I am no a military expert or analyst for Jane's Defence Weekly. I just live here, work here, mind my own business, hope for the best and cheer on Taiwan as a sovereign nation.
But some people think there could be a war someday and that Taiwan is immensely unprepared and ill-equipped. Wendell Minnick, the correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly, recently wrote in the Taipei Times that, in his opinion, "Taiwan's air force has enough munitions to last only for two days in a war with China."
Two days is not a very long time to try to win a war, if it ever comes to that.
Minnick went even further in his observations, writing that if Taiwan remains unprepared and under-equipped for a future war with communist China, Taiwan will be "raped" by Beijing if war does break out. He actually used that word -- "rape" -- writing that as things stand now, in terms of this nation's military preparedness, munitions and equipment, "in a war with China, China will rape Taiwan."
I hope that the air force base in Chiayi County will not become the Westover Air Force Base of my youth. I have faith that the governments of Taiwan and China will make peace someday, rather than war, although one must await the democratization of the People's Republic of China and the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party before that ever happens.
In the meantime, on any given day in quiet, rice-paddied Chiayi, where large farms predominate along with rural temples and roadside betel-nut huts, one can hear the roar of the F-16s taking off and flying overhead on regular practice runs.
The sound of the roaring jet engines is both noisy and reassuring, because I know that the men piloting these sleek, powerful planes are training in order defend their country, if war should ever break out.
Let's hope good sense comes to the leaders of communist China someday soon, and the sooner the better. No Taiwanese military pilot wants to buy a "one-way ticket" to China, as Minnick characterized the professional cynicism that sometimes prevails among defense analysts.
Dan Bloom
Chiayi
KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) recent visit to Beijing and her upcoming visit to Washington will serve as a high-level test of her diplomatic mettle. In Beijing, Cheng was received with symbolic gestures, a warm reception, and high-level access. In Washington, she will receive far less pomp and far sharper questions about the KMT’s vision for the future of Taiwan. Her challenge will be to persuade Washington that the KMT’s engagement with China can coexist with strong deterrence. Cheng’s April 7-12 visit to mainland China coincided with an intense period of conflict in Iran. Despite the strategic significance of Cheng’s trip,
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent the vast Asian chemicals industry into a tailspin. Deprived of the likes of Qatari natural gas and Saudi Arabian oil, the region’s fertilizer and plastics plants are slowing production or even shutting down. Everywhere except China, that is. In petrochemicals, China is unique. As well as a traditional industry that uses oil and gas as feedstock, it has parallel output that relies on its abundant domestic coal. Unsurprisingly, India and other regional powers want to copy and paste the Chinese method. This would not be easy — or climate friendly. The
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto says he knows how to fix the problems facing Indonesia. Yet his economic mismanagement and authoritarian tendencies are steering the nation toward a familiar mix of currency instability and political chaos. The world’s fourth-most populous nation risks reversing the hard-won democratic and business reforms that came after the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. At that time, the rupiah collapsed and the political upheaval that followed forced former president Haji Mohamed Suharto from power. Prabowo’s administration is ignoring similar warning signs. That disconnect was apparent in a national address on Wednesday, when Prabowo projected the swagger that has
“Of course you can choose not to be Taiwanese, just do not stay here,” chairwoman of Taipei 101 operator Taipei Financial Center Corp Janet Chia (賈永婕) said in an online interview with local entertainer Tai Chih-yuan (邰智源), triggering intense discussion on social media, with politicians across party lines weighing in. In the interview, which was aired on May 14, Chia and Tai’s discussion over a meal in Taipei 101 covered Chia’s career change from entertainer to chairwoman and US climber Alex Honnold’s free solo climb up the Taipei 101 building. During the interview, Chia said, “Being on this land, we
RSS