Defense experts and officials in Taipei and Washington had mixed reactions to the embarrassing news, published on Monday by Defense News and Kyodo news agency, that security at a key signals intelligence facility in northern Taiwan was so lax that neighboring cows were observed walking freely around the base.
Located in Linkou (林口), Taipei County, Linyuan Base collects imagery and signals intelligence deep inside China and at sea.
The facility, which is operated by the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) ultra-secret Office of Telecommunication Development (OTD), General Staff Headquarters, was built in 2000 and started operations in 2003, Defense News wrote.
PHOTO COURTESY OF WENDELL MINNICK
Kyodo said construction of the OTD facility cost more than NT$4 billion (US$124 million).
Consisting of a large building for data processing, barracks, a number of satellite dishes and two Circularly Disposed Antenna Arrays (CDAA), or “crop circles” that detect the direction of radio signals, the site has been described by local sources as a combination of the US’ National Security Agency (NSA) and National Reconnaissance Office.
The facility has a range of about 5,000km and can cover all of China, and the larger of the two CDAAs is still, according to Desmond Ball, a signals intelligence expert, “the most important high-frequency radio interception and direction-finding station in Taiwan.”
Ball also told Kyodo that the base is important for maritime surveillance and to track People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ships.
Despite the importance of the base, a work order by the defense ministry said the perimeter fence is “insufficiently high,” adding “in several places, the fence has toppled over or is leaning, with cows breaching the perimeter on several occasions.”
“The fence is not serving its purpose and poses the greatest threat to base security,” the report for the upgrade project says.
Both antenna arrays are accessible either by car, unpaved roads or private land, Kyodo wrote
During a recent visit, there were no guards and no signs of surveillance cameras along the perimeter, though razor wire and some makeshift fences appeared to have been recently laid, preventing the cows from entering the premises, Kyodo reported.
On two separate visits, journalists were able to walk around the base, without being intercepted by guards.
Despite the glaring security shortcomings, an infrastructure upgrade project may not be completed until January 2012, Kyodo reported, adding that from the total budget of NT$107.3 million set aside for the upgrade, only NT$3.1 million, or 3 percent, was allotted last year, while a little more than NT$70.5 million, or 66 percent of the total budget, is to be spent this year.
Asked for comment, John Pike, director of the Global Security think tank in Washington and one of the most respected military and intelligence analysts in the US, told the Taipei Times: “Presumably, if there was an actual need for the fence, it would be in good repair. On the other hand, seriousness and sense of purpose have not always been evident in Taiwanese military preparedness.
“It could be symptomatic of a lax approach, a certain carelessness — and that’s serious,” he said.
“Letting the fence fall down does qualify as being newsworthy and needs some special explanation because it is contrary to common sense,” Pike said.
"This is troubling news,” said Toshi Yoshihara, associate professor of strategy at the US Naval War College and an expert on the PLAN. “Taiwan is already in a precarious strategic position given emerging doubts about its capacity to withstand a knockout blow from Chinese missile barrages.”
Given the facility’s role in monitoring enemy troop movement, it would likely be a primary target for such attacks by China.
“If Taiwan hopes to assert some level of sea control over its littoral environment in accord with its current naval strategy, then it needs the capabilities to maintain the maximum level of battlefield awareness at sea,” he said.
Officials with the Pentagon and the NSA refused to comment on the fence situation.
A US intelligence official said the “Taiwanese intelligence picture” was “too sensitive” to discuss even off the record.
A retired US naval officer who once held a very senior position at the Pentagon and speaking on the strict understanding of anonymity said he was particularly surprised that security had not been tightened over the past few weeks as the crisis in the Korean Peninsula developed.
With the US Navy set to join South Korea in naval exercises, Taiwan may be expected to monitor the PLAN very closely.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former National Security Council official under former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration said no civilian officials, be they from the Democratic Progressive Party or the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), have paid attention to security at the base, as it is a purely military site. Defense News said the Marine Corps’ 77th Regiment is responsible for security at Linyuan
“I paid several visits to the base,” the former official said. “Wandering cows will not pose any threat to operations at the OTD. All sensitive materials are processed in confined rooms, some even guarded.”
“The Chinese tourist [Ma Zhongfei, 馬中飛] who was caught in an MND recruitment center in Taipei [in May last year] is no less important than [lax security at] the OTD,” he said.
Asked to comment on the situation, ministry spokesman Yu Sy-tue (虞思祖) told the Taipei Times that he contacted the facility in Linkou and was told that the situation, including cows walking around, happened two years ago and that it has since been fixed with wire fences and that “security is now good.”
The Defense News and Kyodo reporters conducted their latest trip to Linyuan one week ago.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY RICH CHANG
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for
MASSIVE LOSS: If the next recall votes also fail, it would signal that the administration of President William Lai would continue to face strong resistance within the legislature The results of recall votes yesterday dealt a blow to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) efforts to overturn the opposition-controlled legislature, as all 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers survived the recall bids. Backed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) DPP, civic groups led the recall drive, seeking to remove 31 out of 39 KMT lawmakers from the 113-seat legislature, in which the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) together hold a majority with 62 seats, while the DPP holds 51 seats. The scale of the recall elections was unprecedented, with another seven KMT lawmakers facing similar votes on Aug. 23. For a
All 24 lawmakers of the main opposition Chinese Nationalists Party (KMT) on Saturday survived historical nationwide recall elections, ensuring that the KMT along with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers will maintain opposition control of the legislature. Recall votes against all 24 KMT lawmakers as well as Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) and KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) failed to pass, according to Central Election Commission (CEC) figures. In only six of the 24 recall votes did the ballots cast in favor of the recall even meet the threshold of 25 percent of eligible voters needed for the recall to pass,
LETTER, FLAG FLAP: A Chinese man and woman reportedly tried to snatch a letter meant for Taiwanese winners, while China’s team took offense at a Taiwanese flag President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday condemned an alleged attempt by two Chinese to snatch a letter of congratulations handed to Taiwan’s taekwondo team after they won silver at the Summer World University Games in Germany on Wednesday. A Chinese man and woman reportedly tried to snatch a congratulatory letter to athletes Hung Jiun-yi (洪俊義), Jung Jiun-jie (鍾俊傑) and Huang Cho-cheng (黃卓乘) from the Ministry of Education, and then argued with reporters. “Why are you taking our things?” reporters asked the pair. “Does that say ‘Chinese Taipei’?” the two Chinese reportedly asked. Following the incident, Sports Administration Director-General Cheng Shih-chung (鄭世忠) wrote on Threads about