The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) has added color-coded maps to its official Web site showing weather conditions for the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) and the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) in the South China Sea in a bid to underline the country’s claim over the disputed island groups.
The move comes amid escalating tension in the region over conflicting sovereignty claims. Taiwan, China, Vietnam and the Philippines have all taken new steps to assert their rights over the island chains.
CWB Director-General Hsin Tsai-chin (辛在勤) said that weather conditions are an important part of national data.
“Adding updated weather observation data for the islands to our Web site is part of our strategy to assert Taiwan’s sovereignty over the region,” Hsin said.
Taiwan occupies the Pratas, the largest island group in the South China Sea, as well as Taiping Island (太平島), the largest islet in the Spratlys.
The weather bureau customarily updates weather observation data for Taiwan proper and its Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu islands every 15 to 30 minutes, but data for the Pratas and Taiping can only be updated once every three hours.
Weather bureau officials said the bureau has not yet set up its own observation station in either location.
At the moment, navy and Coast Guard Administration units stationed on the remote islands are responsible for weather observations and the update interval for data transmission through maritime satellite or the navy’s Hydrographic and Oceanographic Bureau takes three hours, the officials said.
Given their locations, both the Pratas and the Spratlys are ideal venues for observing the formation of typhoons and atmospheric circulation in the South China Sea that could threaten Taiwan, they added.
The weather bureau is seeking the support of the naval and coast guard authorities to install a wind profiler on the Pratas Islands and a coastal network of buoys on Taiping Island to gather meteorological data, the officials said, adding that installation of these new facilities would help enhance the accuracy of typhoon and atmospheric circulation forecasting.
As part of the government’s efforts to reinforce its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, the Ministry of National Defense sent a Chengkung-class frigate carrying a group of graduate, doctoral students and professors to Taiping Island on a study tour last week.
National security sources also said the government is studying the feasibility of expanding an existing runway on Taiping Island to improve flight services on the islet, which lies about 1,600km southwest of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan.
The South China Sea region, thought to be rich in oil deposits and marine biodiversity, is claimed either entirely or in part by Taiwan, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
After a nearly two-month-long standoff between armed Chinese and Philippine ships in waters near the Scarborough Shoal — the second largest islet of the Spratlys that is known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) in Taiwan — that ended late last month due only to rough weather, the Philippine government has reportedly decided to tighten the screening of applications by its fishery workers to work aboard Taiwanese fishing vessels.
According to Philippine manpower agents, Taiwan imports 8,000 fishery workers each fishing season. As China’s fishing industry also faces serious manpower shortages, Taiwan hopes to import more fishery workers from the Philippines.
Philippine officials said they must exercise caution in dealing with laborer exports to Taiwan because Taiwanese fishing boats could poach in South China Sea waters claimed by the Philippines, with Filipino workers acting as guides.
About 30 Chinese fishing vessels arrived on Sunday to fish around the Spratlys, escorted by armed Chinese ships.
A Philippine labor official said he does not want to see the South China Sea territorial disputes complicated further by allowing citizens of the Philippines to work aboard Taiwanese fishing boats.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods