Taiwan intends to participate in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercise, but the biggest obstacle has been an objection raised by China, Ministry of National Defense officials said.
“We have sought such opportunities and have expressed our willingness to take part in RIMPAC, which is the largest naval exercise in the Pacific Ocean and is hosted by the US,” Deputy Minister of National Defense Admiral Chen Yung-kang (陳永康) said when he tabled a report at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday.
Chen also said talks are under way between the navy and its US counterpart on the use of the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES).
After establishing CUES protocol based on international radio signal communication procedures, Chen said that Taiwan’s “navy could then have the opportunity to go on toward the next step of participating in joint multinational naval exercises.”
Designed to reduce uncertainty and facilitate communication, CUES works to ensure safe and professional interactions on the high seas. The framework is also a tool for sea services to better promote international cooperation and transparency between the armed forces of different nations.
“Japan, South Korea, the Philippines — and China as well — each of them first agreed upon CUES with the US, then followed up with joint military exercises and further cooperation between the US and their armed forces,” Chen said.
“We were not able to do so in the past because of objections raised by China, but our armed forces are seeking to take part in bilateral or multilateral military exercises, and we will not give up. It is up to the host country. If they invite us, then we will participate,” he added.
Meanwhile, ministry officials yesterday confirmed that the military plans for the first time to dispatch Lockheed P-3C Orion marine patrol aircraft on surveillance missions to the South China Sea in the near future.
The ministry’s budget report sent to the legislature said that the military has taken delivery of eight US-made P-3Cs and another four are to be delivered by the end of this year.
The aircraft are mainly engaged in marine reconnaissance and joint surveillance in Taiwan’s surrounding waters and its air defense identification zone, the report said.
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:
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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