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.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS