The annual Han Kuang military exercises continued yesterday, with combined naval and air force combat maneuvers held off the east coast, and a simulation of the defense of Taichung Harbor from a Chinese attack.
However, live-fire drills and troop movements at a major armed forces base in southern Taiwan met with the protests of local residents.
The protest in southern Taiwan is part of a long-running feud between local residents and the military over the activities of the Joint Operations Training Base Command, which is in Pingtung County’s Checheng Township (車城).
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
Led by county councilors and township elected officials, more than 200 residents gathered at the entrance of the base yesterday morning and attempted to enter.
The residents wanted to stop the military exercise and the live-fire drills, because they said the noise and the concussive shocks from artillery bombardments have damaged nearby houses and severely affected their living environment.
Pingtung County authorities dispatched several squads of police officers to the scene.
Checheng Township mayor Chang Chun-kuei (張春桂) and County Councilor Lee Chih-wei (李志偉) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) were among the officials who headed the protest and they negotiated with military officials to present residents’ grievances.
Lee said that residents have protested against the base since it was set up to train soldiers in the 1960s, and people have always demanded the base be moved elsewhere.
He and other officials said that many farm houses and buildings nearby the base have sustained cracks and severe deterioration, but the military does not provide residents with financial compensation and has never conducted damage assessment on the areas surrounding the base.
Voicing their demands at the base entrance, one resident said: “[Former vice president] Lien Chan (連戰) has been to China to review the Chinese military parades, so our nation’s armed forces need not hold these drills anymore, which cause difficulties to our daily lives.”
In yesterday’s drill, the army’s engineers corps simulated the placing of explosives on piers and other infrastructure at Taichung Harbor, in the event of incursion by Chinese warships.
In addition, a trainee soldier at the Airborne Special Forces Command base in Tainan was found hanging in his barracks on Tuesday, with military officials saying preliminary findings indicate a suicide.
Military officials said the soldier, surnamed Lin (林), was found hanging from the roof of the barracks on Tuesday afternoon.
He was taken down and emergency services were sent for, but medics were unable to revive him and he was pronounced dead, officials said, adding that Lin’s family were notified.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS