China's fighter planes have not encroached on Taiwan's air space, the Ministry of National Defense confirmed yesterday, refuting media reports claiming incursions across the "middle line" of the Taiwan Strait.
A private meeting on Tuesday between lawmakers and Chief of the General Staff General Tang Yao-ming (
At an emergency press conference on Tuesday evening, defense officials said the reports were not true, as they were based on a misinterpretation of what General Tang had said to lawmakers from the People First Party (PFP).
"What Tang said at that meeting involved two separate cases of Chinese fighter planes crossing the middle line of the Taiwan Strait last summer -- after President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) redefined cross-strait relations as being special `state-to-state' in nature," defense ministry spokesman Major General Kung Fan-ding (孔繁定) said.
"Tang did not talk about any recent occurrence of the same kind to the lawmakers. There has been no close approach of Chinese fighter planes since the last two incidents, which occurred last July and last August respectively," Kung said.
Despite the defense ministry's denial, Wang Tien-ging (
Another PFP lawmaker, Chin Huei-chu (
According to Chinese newspapers that quoted unidentified PFP lawmakers, Tang said the air force did nothing to stop the fighter planes from entering Taiwan's airspace so as to avoid the possibility of an outbreak in hostilities.
But another defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said yesterday there had indeed been sightings of close approaches by Chinese warplanes over the past few months.
The official said that on at least one occasion it had been US planes which expelled the intruders.
At the end of February, five Chinese military planes flew west of the offshore Penghu islands, under close watch by a number of US fighter planes, the official said.
The planes, including two Hung-6 bombers and three Su-27 jet fighters, were only 10 nautical miles away from Penghu at the closest, the official said.
The antiquated Hung-6 bombers do not pose a real threat to Taiwan by themselves, but some have reportedly been converted into electronic warfare planes.
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
BIG YEAR: The company said it would also release its A12 chip the same year to keep a ‘reliable stream of new silicon technologies’ flowing to its customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its newest A13 chip is to enter volume production in 2029 as the chipmaker seeks to hold onto its tech leadership and demand for next-generation chips used in artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also unveiled its A12 chip at its annual technology symposium in Santa Clara, California. The A12 chip, which features TSMC’s super-power-rail technology to provide backside power delivery for AI and HPC applications, is also to enter volume production in 2029, a year after the scheduled release of the A14 chip. The technology moves
RSS