Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (李傑) said yesterday the Chinese military has conducted more than 30 military exercices focusing on Taiwan.
Lee said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been growing in strength, and its military drills have been conducted under Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) principle of "talk less while doing more, hide the real but show the fake" (少說多做、隱真示假).
He highlighted the Chinese military threat yesterday morning during a meeting of the legislature's National Defense Committee. He said the Chinese military drills had emphasized landings on Taiwan, and the Chinese military believed it could land in a short period of time.
Lee said China has more than 20 satellites which were able to monitor Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait 24-hours a day. He said the quantity and quality of Chinese warships and submarines were increasing, and its power projection capabilities are also advancing.
Lee said China was also believed to be developing its first aircraft carrier. He said if China built an aircraft carrier force, it would be able to attack Taiwan from more directions.
Lee said China had targeted about 900 ballistic and cruise missiles at Taiwan, and the numbers were increasing at around 75 to 100 per year. China was also developing new missiles, Lee said.
He said about 500 advanced fighter jets with long-range missiles had also been deployed at China's military bases.
Lee noted that China had earmarked 351 billion yuan (US$45 billion) for its defense budget this year, an increase of 53 billion yuan over last year.
It was the the sharpest rise in the defense budget in a decade and a 17.8 percent increase in Beijing's military budget, he said.
Lee warned the military balance between China and Taiwan has been tipping in favor of Beijing.
The gap would increase if Taiwan did not build an advanced military force, he said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS