The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) released its defense policy paper yesterday, proposing to establish a cyberarmy as the fourth branch of the armed forces, along with focused investment and government support to develop the nation’s defense industry.
Other key recommendations in the 2015 Defense Policy Blue Paper include nurturing companies for the government’s indigenous submarine plan, merging the Veterans Affairs Council with the Ministry of National Defense and reassessing the all-volunteer military program.
DPP Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said the nation needs to set up a cyberarmy to combat the daily “digital warfare” seen in cyberattacks from China.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The DPP’s Defense Policy Advisory Committee proposed establishing a cyberarmy by recruiting cybersecurity experts and young computer professionals, with an initial budget of NT$1 billion (US$32.56 million) and a “Cyberarmy Command Headquarters Office” that would integrate the functions and resources from the defense ministry’s “communications electronics and information,” “military intelligence and surveillance,” “digital warfare command” and “communications development” offices.
The party said the new branch would have commissioned officers and a command structure similar to the army’s, with active service obligations and benefits in line with the current branches.
Asked about the DPP’s proposal, defense ministry officials said the National Security Act (國家安全法) could be amended to enable existing units of the armed forces to defend the nation’s digital territory.
They also said that the military has in recent years adjusted its resources and recruiting to attract computing and electronic communications staff to enhance the nation’s overall cybersecurity, while the military employs cyberattack simulations during its digital warfare exercises.
Committee convener York Chen (陳文政) said the nation has the talent in science and engineering to obtain the technical know-how to advance toward the goal of a self-sufficient defense industry.
“An indigenous defense industry has a positive strategic impact on bolstering public confidence in, and support of, national defense,” the policy paper says.
DPP officials said Taiwan faces increasing difficulty in obtaining foreign arms because of China.
The policy paper says the government should seek international cooperation with its allies on new technologies so that it could eventually produce and maintain most of its weaponry and equipment.
It also says the defense ministry should encourage investment in the capacity for indigenous arms production.
“In the past, Taiwan’s defense ministry officials often headed to the US with shopping lists of weapons and military equipment to buy,” Wu said.
“That was the old approach. In the future, we will go to the US and tell them what our needs are and what are our weaknesses are. We will ask them to assist and upgrade our domestic defense sector in these areas,” he said.
The annual budget of the defense ministry should be stabilized at 3 percent of Taiwan’s GDP, Wu said.
‘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