Ministry of National Defense officials yesterday neither confirmed nor denied that two US Air Force B-52s entered the nation’s flight information region (FIR) on Wednesday on a mission from their base in Guam, with experts saying it might have been a US response to flights around Taiwan and its surrounding islands by Chinese H-6 bombers.
The B-52s flew from Andersen Air Force Base, transited through the East China Sea to Taiwan’s FIR over its territories to the east, then passed over Okinawa on their return to base, according to an Aircraft Spots tweet.
It was the first time this year that US Air Force B-52s had entered Taiwan’s FIR following multiple missions through the South China Sea and East China Sea from air bases in Guam and Okinawa, Japan, defense experts said.
Photo: screen grab from Twitter
US military officials have previously said that these are “routine training” exercises and that US aircraft in the region were on “continuous bomber presence missions.”
The ministry neither confirmed nor denied the passage of the B-52s in a statement released yesterday, but added that it has all activities and movements within the nation’s airspace and waters under surveillance.
There are six B-52s based at Andersen Air Force Base, as well as B-1 Lancer heavy bombers and B-2 Spirit Stealth Bombers, US military reports said.
Photo: AFP
They were redeployed last year as part of the US Indo-Pacific Command’s strategic operations.
The redeployment of the US bomber fleet to the Asia-Pacific region is to reassure US allies in the face of a potential hostile attack by China or North Korea, defense experts said.
The National Interest magazine earlier this week published an article by defense editor David Axe titled “The Air Force Wants to Use B-52 Bombers to Protect Taiwan from Invasion.”
The B-52H “Stratofortress” has a range of more than 14,000km, is capable of carrying cruise and nuclear missiles, and can reach Taiwan in four hours.
The mission was a response to flights around Taiwan and through the Miyako Strait by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s Xian H-6s, defense expert Chen Wei-hao (陳維浩) said.
The B-52s deliberately activated their automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast system to announce their presence and send a strong message to China, Chen added.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS