Taiwan’s long-range radar, the Surveillance Radar Program (SRP), might already have been compromised by China, according to a Jane’s Defence Weekly report.
Quoting Washington and Taipei sources, this week’s edition says that China has built a large radar system of its own that can interfere with Taiwan’s SRP signals, adding that China has a political motivation to match Taiwan’s huge investment in the radar system.
“By doing so, Beijing demonstrates that it can win the arms race with Taipei — a move that could be part of a wider propaganda campaign to demoralize Taiwan and increase the pressure for unification,” the magazine said.
Meanwhile, the Washington Times reported in a front-page story that there is “rising domestic resistance” in Taiwan to US pressure to expand a missile defense system on in Taiwan that could detect long-range missile threats from China.
Quoting a delegation of “high-level Taiwanese diplomats,” the newspaper reported that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has been “enduring so much domestic pressure” from voters questioning why the nation needs towers to detect long-range missiles that would not target Taiwan.
The charges came directly from the leader of the delegation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of Policy Planning Director-General Jieh Wen-chieh (介文汲), during a meeting with editors and reporters at the newspaper.
It was a “rare public acknowledgment of rising domestic resistance,” the newspaper said.
Later, US Congressional sources in Washington with close ties to Taiwan said they were “completely unaware” of any significant resistance to the radar installations.
US House of Representatives Armed Services seapower subcommittee chairman Randy Forbes has called for the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency to explore the costs and benefits of merging Taiwan’s early-warning radar with US missile and sensor systems.
A number of radar installations have been built along Taiwan’s western coastline and Jieh told the Washington Times that some in Taiwan are resisting the idea of expanding the system.
He said the Ma administration believed the radar system helped both Taiwan and the US.
Jieh is quoted as saying: “It’s not my personal criticism, but a lot of people’s criticism in Taiwan is that: ‘Hey, why do we, Taiwan, need such big radar towers that can detect the inner land of mainland China? We don’t need that actually.’ That’s some people’s argument.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique