Minister of National Defense Kao Kuang-chi (高廣圻) and other senior military officials came under scrutiny yesterday, with legislators questioning the combat readiness of the nation’s armed forces given the perceived threat against the frontline island of Kinmen, which is close to Xiamen, China.
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) said Kinmen’s security is now in jeopardy as the armed forces have no defense against a surprise attack.
She said that the number of Chinese visitors to Kinmen has spiked to record levels, with 150,000 visitors last month — a daily average of about 5,000 people.
“This sharp increase is because our government has opened the gate to Kinmen for the Chinese. It is all due to the new policy of granting visas on arrival — specific to Chinese tourists — which was implemented in February,” Chou said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. “This represents a serious security threat to our sovereignty. Currently we do not have many troops in Kinmen — maybe only a few thousand. They are of insufficient strength to defend Kinmen and also have no combat readiness plan in case of hostile action.”
Chou said it is possible for China’s People’s Liberation Army to mount a surprise invasion by posing as Chinese tourists.
Kao said that since Kinmen was opened up to Chinese visitors, the armed forces have adjusted troop deployments and defense contingency plans to deal with a potential military threat.
“Our military and intelligence units are always on alert and ready to monitor suspicious Chinese tourists,” Kao said.
Chou has asked Kao and other military officials to present the legislature with contingency plans to counter possible hostile action on Kinmen.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS