Taiwan and China yesterday staged their biggest-ever joint maritime search-and-rescue drill, near waters where the two sides fought fierce battles half a century ago, officials said.
More than 30 vessels and three helicopters took part in the exercise off Kinmen, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement.
About 400 people from coast guard, rescue and maritime support units from the two sides took part in the drill, according to the statement.
PHOTO; AFP
“The purpose of the drill was to check how responsible units from Taiwan and the mainland [China] will react to maritime accidents,” the Coast Guard Administration said.
The drill, which covered an area of about 6.2km2, played out a scenario where a passenger ship shuttling between Kinmen and Xiamen hits a cargo vessel, causing fires and leaving some passengers in the sea, it said.
Exercises of this type were agreed in earlier talks between Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
Kinmen was the scene of fierce battles in the 1940s and 1950s when the Chinese Communist Party’s military repeatedly tried to conquer the island group held by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Now peaceful exchanges have taken over and so far people from Taiwan and China have made more than 1.28 million visits using a ferry that links Kinmen and Xiamen.
Taiwan and China held the first-ever such drill in 2008, but on the Taiwan side only the Kinmen County Government joined the drill, mobilizing one ship.
Additional reporting by CNA
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS