The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday for the first time publicly confirmed that its US$1.3 billion long-range early-warning radar (EWR) system in Hsinchu was operational and said it had tracked a highly controversial rocket launch shortly after it blasted off in North Korea.
In a statement, the ministry said it closely monitored the launch and that the rocket’s flight did not pose any threat to national security.
“Our long-range early-warning radar system detected the North Korean rocket flying over waters about 200km east of Taiwan, and that the first and second stages of the rocket crashed into waters off South Korea and the Philippines respectively,” the ministry said in a statement.
Photo: CNA screen grab from Google Maps
Ministry spokesman Major General David Lo (羅紹和) said Chief of General Staff General Lin Chen-yi (林鎮夷) was charged with monitoring the situation at Hengshan Headquarters during the launch, adding that US-made Patriot missiles, domestically built Tien Kung air defense systems and Kidd-class destroyers equipped with surface-to-air missiles monitored the launch and were ready to respond.
This was the first time the ministry mentioned the radar system, which was built by US-based Raytheon Corp, as being operational. To date, the military has revealed few technical details about the radar installation, known as the “Anpang Project,” at Leshan (樂山) in Hsinchu County.
Lo later said that the radar system was formally inaugurated on Tuesday and has been operational since.
The installation’s development began in 1999, when US defense officials stressed the importance of Taiwan having early-warning capabilities to track Chinese missiles.
Following a series of debates in the legislature, a US$800 million request by the ministry was granted in November 2003 to fund one EWR site. In March the following year, a notification to US Congress made provisions for two EWR systems for US$1.8 billion, but in June 2005, Taiwan signed a US$752 million contract with Raytheon for only one radar system, with delivery in 2009, the Congressional Research Service said in its annual report on US arms sales to Taiwan, released last month.
Despite reports alleging that the current administration had abandoned plans to acquire a second EWR system, the decision not to do so was made in 2007, with industry sources saying it may have occurred as early as 2003.
From the onset, the program was plagued by a series of delays and cost overruns, bringing the total bill to about US$1.37 billion after three requests for additional funding.
Critics of the program have said Taiwan has paid far more than other US allies for such capabilities and accused Washington of using the EWR as a “money pit.”
Described as the most powerful EWR installation on the face of the planet, Taiwan’s radar can simultaneously track as many as 1,000 airborne targets the size of a golf ball within a range of 3,000km. The system can also track aircraft and may have the ability to monitor targets at sea, though there are doubts that the satellite-tracking is active.
The radar’s reach will give Taiwan a six-minute warning of a missile launch by China. Although defense officials have refused to confirm this publicly, Taiwan will likely share some of the data acquired through the radar with US forces based in the Pacific.
A spokesman for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) quoted him as saying that Pyongyang’s launch was “unwise” and created regional tensions.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also reacted.
“The DPP staunchly opposes any provocative act that threatens regional security,” DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said.
Su added that, unlike the US, South Korea and Japan, the Ma administration had failed to make sufficient preparations nor responded instantly “with the rocket already at the front door.”
“[The Ma administration] acted like this had nothing to do with Taiwan,” Su said.
Additional reporting by Rich Chang and Chris Wang
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
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
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS