Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile systems were moved to the Hualien and Taitung areas ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday to ensure that Taiwan’s southeastern border is adequately defended in case of an attack, sources at the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said.
The relocation was prompted by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force conducting several training missions around Taiwanese airspace over the past few months and a Chinese naval group consisting of China’s sole aircraft carrier and five other vessels sailing as close as 20 nautical miles (37km) of Taiwan’s southeastern air defense zone, the sources said.
The group sailed 90 nautical miles south of Pingtung County’s Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, as it headed for the western Pacific Ocean on a long-distance training mission, they said.
Screengrab from Lockheed Martin’s Web site
Air defenses in the area had previously relied mainly on Hawk anti-aircraft missiles, which only have a range of 40km, and the ministry had been planning to retire them as they are outdated, the sources said.
Hawk missiles were first deployed in Taiwan in 1959.
The ministry is planning to replace Hawk missiles with Tien Kung III surface-to-air missiles, but as there is a backlog in the new system’s production line, PAC-3 systems have been deployed to the nation’s east coast for the interim, they said.
Tien Kung III missiles were developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, and are manufactured in Taiwan.
Meanwhile, ministry officials said that Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) — which was originally conceived as a rectangle — is missing a corner in the southeast due to an agreement with the US dating back to 1959, when the US cited fighter jets flying from Japan’s Ryuku Islands to the Philippines straying into Taiwan’s ADIZ and asked Taiwanese military officials to scale back the zone.
As a result, the distance between the southeast border of the ADIZ and Taiwan proper was shortened, the officials said, but added that PAC-3 missiles stationed on the east coast would help offset the shortened response time.
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
PAPERS, PLEASE: The gang exploited the high value of the passports, selling them at inflated prices to Chinese buyers, who would treat them as ‘invisibility cloaks’ The Yilan District Court has handed four members of a syndicate prison terms ranging from one year and two months to two years and two months for their involvement in a scheme to purchase Taiwanese passports and resell them abroad at a massive markup. A Chinese human smuggling syndicate purchased Taiwanese passports through local criminal networks, exploiting the passports’ visa-free travel privileges to turn a profit of more than 20 times the original price, the court said. Such criminal organizations enable people to impersonate Taiwanese when entering and exiting Taiwan and other countries, undermining social order and the credibility of the nation’s
‘SALAMI-SLICING’: Beijing’s ‘gray zone’ tactics around the Pratas Islands have been slowly intensifying, with the PLA testing Taiwan’s responses and limits, an expert said The Ministry of National Defense yesterday condemned an intrusion by a Chinese drone into the airspace of the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) as a serious disruption of regional peace. The ministry said it detected the Chinese surveillance and reconnaissance drone entering the southwestern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone early yesterday, and it approached the Pratas Islands at 5:41am. The ministry said it immediately notified the garrison stationed in the area to enhance aerial surveillance and alert levels, and the drone was detected in the islands’ territorial airspace at 5:44am, maintaining an altitude outside the effective range of air-defense weaponry. Following
RSS