Taiwan's military accused China yesterday of sending nearly 20 "flying objects" -- possibly balloons -- across the Taiwan Strait into Taiwan air space, threatening civil aviation safety in the process.
A military spokesman said the objects were spotted on Sunday.
"The objects were found flying westward at altitudes of 15,000 to 24,000 feet in the middle of the Strait," Defense Ministry spokesman Kung Fan-ding (
"Later they disappeared off the northwest coast of Taiwan," Kung told reporters, adding that his ministry immediately informed the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA,
CAA officials have said, however, that civil aviation radar detected no unidentified objects in Taiwan's air space on Sunday.
"Whatever their purpose was, they would affect flight safety. Not only military planes, but civilian planes," Kung said.
In the air space where the balloons were discovered, Kung said, there is busy civilian air traffic flow with hundreds of domestic and international flights daily.
The detection of the mystery objects was the first of its kind since the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, when balloons were sighted after having been launched from China's Fujian Province.
Those balloons were sent up to collect weather information for fighter planes which were amassed at that time at air bases in coastal provinces facing Taiwan, said Major General Chao Lien-ti (趙連悌), an official under the Defense Ministry's deputy chief of the general staff for information.
Chao said he believed the objects the military claims to have spotted on Sunday were launched for intelligence purposes.
"It is likely that the balloons were used to collect information about Taiwan's air defense radar. But we did not discern any radio signals emitted by the balloons," Chao said.
Chao denied, however, suggestions that the spotting of the objects on Sunday necessarily indicated any large-scale military maneuvering by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).
China could be using the balloons to carry radar that might be used to spot holes in Taiwan's air defenses, said Cheng Chi-wen, an editor of the Taiwan-based Defense International magazine.
Chao assured the public that if China tried to use balloons to launch bombing missions or start bio-chemical warfare against Taiwan, the armed forces would have the capability to respond.
Due to the sensitivity of the incident, military officials have briefed authorities from the quasi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF,
"We hope to express our wish to China -- through the SEF or the MAC -- that we do not want to see any more of the balloons sent into the Taiwan Strait. We will send fighter planes to check out the situation if there are any such occurrences in the future," Chao said.
The SEF has reportedly sent a letter already to its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, asking Chinese authorities to look into the matter.
An editorial yesterday in the China Times Express daily said Taiwan's military might have announced the mysterious objects to whip up tensions in the Strait and help the KMT's presidential candidate, Vice President Lien Chan (
DPP presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has warned that the KMT might try to play the "stability card'' to win votes.
"The KMT normally uses scare tactics in the final stages of election campaigns to give its candidates a boost," he said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique