A Philippine military spokesman yesterday said alleged plans by the Taiwanese military to deploy surface-to-air missiles on Taiping Island (太平島) in the South China Sea could fuel tensions in the region and be seen as an act of aggression by other claimants to a series of disputed islets.
Calling the move “unsettling” and “uncalled for,” Philippine Defense Department spokesman Zosimo Paredes said how other countries in the region would react to what he saw as an “out of the ordinary” move by Taiwan remained to be seen.
Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) on Wednesday gave signs he supported a proposal by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to deploy the Air Force’s Antelope air defense system — a derivative of the indigenous Tien Chien I “Sky Sword” (天劍一, TC-1) air-to-air missile used on the CK-1 Indigenous Defense Fighter — or the US-made M48A2 “Chaparral” on Taiping.
As the Chaparral is an aging system, the Antelope, developed by the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, is a likelier candidate. According to Jane’s Defence Weekly, the Antelope, which carries four modified TC-1 missiles per unit, has a range of 9,000m and a maximum altitude of 3,000m.
Kao said the ministry would be amenable to such a deployment, provided it received a request from the Coast Guard Administration (CGA), which since 1999 has overseen Taiwan’s claims to Taiping.
Coast Guard Administration Minister Wang Ginn-wang (王進旺) told the legislature last week that his agency and the ministry had launched a two-month combat readiness evaluation for Taiping earlier this month.
Wang said a decision on deploying additional personnel or acquiring advanced weaponry would be made following the evaluation.
At present, the CGA relies mostly on machine guns to defend the island, on which Taiwan completed construction of a 1,150m airstrip in 2008, sparking protest from some regional claimants.
In his question-and-answer session with Kao, Lin singled out the Philippines and Vietnam as the nation’s principal adversaries in the region, while not mentioning China.
Paredes, who said Manila was prepared to “defend to the hilt” islets it already occupied in the Spratly Islands (南沙群島), nevertheless attempted to play down the significance of the news.
“That’s their [Taiwan] own prerogative. Should they want to do that, nobody can stop them, but they should not encroach into other interests so that peace will prevail,” he said.
“If they are just to protect their own interests there is no problem, I don’t see any problem there,” he said, calling Taiwan “a friend” of the Philippines and asking Taipei to coordinate its moves with neighboring countries.
Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, China, the Philippines and Malaysia lay claim to all or parts of the Spratlys, which are believed to sit on important oil and natural gas reserves.
Reacting to news of the possible missile deployment, the US on Friday appealed for calm and called on all claimants to avoid sparking an arms buildup.
“We encourage all claimants to resolve their disputes through peaceful means, in accordance with international law and without resorting to the threat or use of force,” US Department of Defense spokesman George Little told reporters in Washington.
Additional reporting by AFP
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
RSS