The military on Wednesday concluded a two-day computer-simulated war game exercise with government agencies that focused on a conflict over the disputed Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) involving Taiwan, China, Japan and the US.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) oversaw the proceedings by receiving reports at the Presidential Office.
After reviewing the reports, he headed to the Yuanshan Command Center in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) District to monitor the exercise until its wrap-up in the evening.
According to National Security Council (NSC) officials, this year’s conflict scenario centered on military conflicts in the East China Sea between Japan and China, over the Diaoyutais, which are claimed by Taiwan, Japan and China, and which Tokyo calls the Senkakus.
The exercise focused on Washington asking Taiwan to join the “US-Japan Security Alliance,” while China threatened Taiwan against taking sides in its conflict with Japan over the islands.
During the war game, Ma responded to the simulated crisis by initiating a “national security mechanism,” whereby under his leadership, the government tries to placate China, while providing behind-the-scenes assistance to US.
According to NSC officials, “by employing such two-sided policies, Ma was successful in stabilizing the conflict situation in the marine zones around Taiwan.”
More than 400 people from 20 government agencies participated in the annual drill, including the NSC, the Ministry of National Defense, the Coast Guard Administration, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Finance, among others.
During the exercise, media were alerted to simulated responses by some government agencies, when they reportedly had to “deal with chaotic situations in society, when the military crisis reach a high enough level.”
Besides the Diaoyutai Islands scenario, the exercise this year also simulated an escalation of regional tensions due to China’s real-life declaration of an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea.
In the simulation, the government had to boost supply shipments to its military instalment on Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島),which is part of the disputed Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島).
Separately, the government has lodged “a serious protest” against a Japanese pamphlet recently printed that lists the Diaoyutais as part of Tokyo’s territory.
“The move by Japan is unhelpful to maintaining regional stability and does not change the fact that the Republic of China has sovereignty over the island group in the East China Sea,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Tuesday.
The pamphlet, also available online, states that: “There is no doubt that the Senkaku Islands are clearly an inherent part of the territory of Japan, in light of historical facts and based upon international law. Indeed, the Senkaku Islands are under the valid control of Japan.”
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching