The Ministry of National Defense yesterday made reassurances the situation in the Taiwan Strait is being closely monitored, refuting news reports that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is conducting large-scale military drills in Fujian Province as a show of force in response to Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections.
The ministry issued a statement yesterday to several Taiwanese media outlets, saying that examination of the news footage found the videos were composites pieced together showing various PLA military units conducting military exercises last year.
News claims of large-scale PLA military drills in Fujian Province are “exaggerations, and false news reports,” the statement said.
“The military activities shown on China Central Television’s news footage did not conform to the actual conditions and activities of PLA’s winter military drills in recent months,” the ministry said.
Ministry spokesman Major General David Lo (羅紹和) said the ministry monitors military activities around the Taiwan Strait closely, and from the information gathered, PLA units had been conducting their scheduled winter exercises and these drills were routine training sessions.
Taiwanese news outlets caused controversy yesterday when several reported that Chinese media showed video footage of large-scale military drills in Fujian Province, supposedly in response to Taiwan’s elections.
Some news footage reportedly showed the PLA 31st Group Army carrying out amphibious landing exercises, along with fighter jets and long-range missiles.
The 31st Group Army is a composite unit with infantry divisions, air defense and artillery regiments, and is tasked with monitoring the Taiwan Strait and holds priority status in the PLA’s command structure.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods