Direct transportation links across the Taiwan Strait will have a grave impact on security since China has never forsaken its hostility toward Taiwan, Minister of National Defense Tang Yiau-min (湯曜明) said over the weekend.
Tang said direct cross-strait transportation links must follow the "point-to-point and fixed route" principle to avoid having Taiwan's national security compromised.
Speaking at a news conference on Friday where the nation's first assessment report on the impact of direct cross-strait transportation was unveiled, Tang said the military would face daunting challenges in talks about opening direct shipping or flights across the Strait.
It is the military's responsibility to come up with well-devised measures to meet the needs that arise from the opening, Tang said.
According to Beijing's defense white paper, Tang said, Chinese authorities will never renounce the use of force against Taiwan and will not allow the current separation of the two sides of the Strait to continue indefinitely.
Worse still, Tang said, China has adjusted its military deployment by placing emphasis on the southeastern coastal region that lies opposite Taiwan.
Tang said China has deployed more guided ballistic missiles and new types of fighters, warships and submarines in its southeastern provinces, and the People's Liberation Army regularly conducts combined services drills with Taiwan as the objective.
Although the Taiwan Strait provides a natural buffer for Taiwan, Tang said direct cross-strait flights will pose a grave threat to Taiwan's security as it takes only three to five minutes for Chinese jet fighters to reach Taiwan should the fighters take off from Pingtan in Fujian Province heading to Hsinchu.
Officials wondered who would guarantee that Chinese airplanes or ships crossing the Strait are not equipped with monitoring equipment for military espionage.
Meanwhile, many Taiwanese academics who are familiar with national defense said the nation should attach equal importance to defense preparedness and direct cross-strait transportation links.
Chang Wu-yueh (張五岳) from Tamkang University said the armed forces should be prepared for any military situation, whether there will be direct cross-strait transportation links or not.
"The people's will to resist, which could be reduced once direct cross-strait transportation links are opened, is a more important issue to tackle," Chang said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift