In an unprecedented move, Taiwan's military yesterday opened two top secret Air Force bases for the first time to the media, removing the veil of secrecy that had shrouded the sites for years.
The two military sites are the Chiashan (
The two bases are the most important military locations on the island.
Chiashan serves as the command post of the country's last remaining counter-attack forces in the event of a war and Hengshan is the country's top military command center during both war and peace time.
The construction of the Chiashan base, which began in 1985, took seven years to complete and cost about NT$27.2 billion, officials at Chiashan said. Upon its completion, it was said to be the largest base of its kind in the Far East.
The construction of Chiashan included the hollowing out of a mountain to accommodate fighter planes and attack helicopters from around the country during times of war. The entire base is essentially a shelter for planes, including Mirage 2000-5s and US-made F-16s. The number of planes the site can accommodate at any one time, however, is still classified by the military for national security reasons.
During yesterday's media tour, two French-made Mirage 2000-5 jet fighters took off from exits in the hollowed-out mountain base, performing dry-runs of maneuvers that mimic real-life military confrontations.
The Hengshan Command Post was another ambitious project by the military. Construction began in 1960, 11 years after the KMT government established itself in Taiwan.
The project, which involved the excavation of a mountain in the Taipei suburb of Tachih, was not completed until 1982. It serves as the highest-level military command center in both war and peace as well as an operational center for the government during war.
It features a high-tech command center, which receives real-time information about enemy troop movements and can order immediate responses.
The military demonstrated real-time information it had obtained regarding the crossing of the median line of the Taiwan Strait by Chinese jet fighters on July 25 and July 30.
Officials at the center said they have taken appropriate measures to prepare for attacks from the mainland.
"The Chinese planes were spotted and tracked from take-off. Before the planes reached the middle of the Strait, our fighter planes and anti-aircraft missile sites were already on alert," an official said.
Chief of the General Staff Gen. Tang Yao-ming (
The base also provides space for major governmental agencies to operate in times of a war, including offices for the president and the Cabinet.
‘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
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
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