The Army Command Headquarters is to earmark NT$1.6 billion (US$52 million) to build a helicopter base and helicopter hangars in Taitung County and Taichung respectively to preserve the combat capability of its rotary-wing units in case of a surprise attack by China, a Ministry of National Defense official said yesterday.
Attack helicopters, including Boeing AH-64E Apaches and Bell AH-1W Super Cobras, are to be stationed at Fong Nian Air Force Base (豐年) in Taitung County and Ching Chuan Kang Air Force Base (清泉崗) in Taichung, the official said on condition of anonymity.
According to the fiscal 2019 budget sent to the Legislative Yuan for review, the army plans to establish training bases for all kinds of helicopters under the Aviation and Special Forces Command, the official said.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The Taitung base would cost NT$933 million and is expected to be completed by 2023, they said.
With the establishment of the base, rotary-wing units under the command would be able to use the terrain along the coast to evacuate and preserve their combat capability in the event of a surprise attack by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the official said.
The base could also serve as a forward command center for disaster relief, they added.
The planned hangars at Ching Chuan Kang Air Force Base would cost NT$729 million and would also be completed by 2023, the official said.
The command’s AH-1W helicopters have been stationed at the base for some time, but they are “borrowing” the air force’s spare hangars, they said.
“Once we begin building the new hangars, helicopters under the command will have more appropriate storage space, as well as adequate maintenance capabilities,” the official said.
The upgrade would also cut down the maintenance hours that each unit needs, the official added.
In separate news, a senior government official yesterday said that the National Day Celebration Preparation Committee would on Thursday next week announce its arrangements for the Double Ten National Day celebrations.
As customary, several formations of the air force’s main fighter jets would fly over the Presidential Office Building in Taipei and people attending the celebrations, the official said.
As fighter jets travel fast and fly at high altitudes, the air force would also dispatch slower planes, such as Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport planes and Lockheed P-3C Orion maritime surveillance aircraft, which would allow the public to get a closer view of them, the official added.
Weather would be the deciding factor in determining how low the planes would fly, the official said, adding that flight safety would be the top concern.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS