The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reiterated President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) pledge to increase the nation’s defense spending every year after this fiscal year.
The statement came after China announced it would raise its military spending this year.
China’s official military budget is to be 1.11 trillion yuan (US$175.1 billion), a 8.1 percent increase from last year, when China raised the budget 7 percent, Xinhua news agency reported.
Photo: EPA
Tsai has pledged to raise to the defense budget every year and earmark expenditures for planned procurements, ministry spokesman Major General Chen Chung-chi (陳中吉) said.
The government is also to make special budget proposals to cover the costs of major unplanned arms deals, instead of deducting such expenses from the defense budget, Chen said.
“This ministry is committed to promoting national defense autonomy and the security of our nation,” he said.
Meanwhile, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) blamed Taiwan for “increasingly severe and complicated” cross-strait relations at a news event yesterday marking the opening of China’s 13th National People’s Congress.
“We have resolute will, full confidence and even fuller ability to prevent any sort or form of Taiwan independence separatist acts,” Zhang said.
China has “encountered more risks and challenges” in cross-strait relations due to Taiwan’s refusal to acknowledge the so-called “1992 consensus” and “more forceful interventions by outside forces,” Zhang added.
The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted to making up in 2000, refers to a supposed tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Taiwan is not the side that has been acting in ways that are detrimental to the relationship, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said.
The government’s commitment to peace and goodwill has been clear and consistent, a fact that is not missed by the international community, he said.
“The goodwill and promises of this government are unchanged. We have no intention of returning the nation to a confrontational course of action or bowing to pressure,” he said.
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
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
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
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
RSS