A Taiwanese company has withdrawn notice to use Chinese vessels on a renewable energy project off the coast, the port authority said yesterday, after opposition lawmakers cited security concerns about the joint operation.
The last-minute decision to drop the vessels underscores the nation’s concerns about possible surveillance by Beijing, and comes a day after the government said it was making security checks on a Chinese smartphone company.
The Huadian 1001, a Chinese platform vessel and a towing vessel, departed China’s Nantong in Jiangsu Province earlier this month for the Port of Taichung, after receiving the all-clear from the Maritime and Port Bureau to ply Taiwanese waters.
The Chinese-registered vessels had been contracted to work on Taiwan’s first offshore wind project.
Two Chinese companies, China Huadian Engineering Co Ltd and Jiangsu-based Blue Water Windmill Engineering Co Ltd, were awarded contracts.
However, opposition lawmakers this week raised concerns at a committee hearing into the project that the Chinese vessels could carry out surveillance and gather sensitive information about Taiwan’s coastline and oceanography.
“How can you safely allow this Chinese ship to enter Taiwan?” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) asked the committee hearing.
Wednesday’s hearing included senior officials from Taiwan’s defense, national security, transportation and maritime, science and technology, economics and interior ministries, in addition to the Mainland Affairs Council.
Maritime and Port Bureau Secretary-General Hsu Kuo-ching (許國慶) yesterday said the Taiwanese contractor CBSC Corp Taiwan, through one of its subcontractors for the project, had advised authorities that it would rescind an application to use the Chinese vessel.
An official from the Ministry of Economic Affairs involved with the wind project said that other options, such as using a ship and crew from another country, were now being considered.
The Ministry of Interior said in a report to lawmakers that it would also revoke the entry certificates of 37 Chinese technicians who were due to take part in the project.
The Chinese vessel and technicians had been contracted to assist in constructing and installing an ocean meteorological observation tower and other seabed structures in the first phase of the project.
Meanwhile, the National Communications Commission on Wednesday said it was investigating whether Xiaomi Inc, China’s leading smartphone company by domestic shipments, was a cybersecurity threat.
It said independent tests were being made on Xiaomi phones after reports in recent months that some models automatically sent user data back to the firm’s servers in China.
Privately owned Xiaomi has faced several allegations of security leaks in recent months.
Last month, the company publicly apologized and said it would change a default cloud feature after a Finnish security company found proof that Xiaomi collected address book data without permission.
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