A defense review prepared for the legislature does not contain any description of a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) plan to establish a cyberwarfare branch in the armed forces, as promised by the party during the campaign for last year’s presidential election.
The Ministry of National Defense is scheduled to present its Quadrennial Defense Review — the first such report since the DPP government took office last year — to the legislature on Thursday.
The report does not say anything about a DPP defense blue book that promised to establish a fourth service in the armed forces aimed at fighting organized hackers and countering terrorist cyberattacks on Taiwan.
The report does mention “strengthening cyberwarfare capabilities” and other measures to enhance the quality of the nation’s defense personnel, and acknowledges that Taiwan cannot compete quantitatively with China’s growing People’s Liberation Army.
It says that China’s rising military power is not only adversely affecting the stability of the Asia-Pacific region, but also “posing a threat to Taiwan’s national security.”
To enhance national security, the ministry will boost its cyberwarfare capabilities, ensure the security of its command-control and information infrastructure, and strengthen joint counterattack readiness, the report says.
The report also elaborates on the ministry’s “multi-deterrence” strategy, saying it would use “innovative, asymmetrical” ways to force the enemy into “multi-dilemmas,” deterring the enemy from attempting to launch attacks on Taiwan.
If the enemy should invade Taiwan, the armed forces will “resist enemy troops at their home bases, strike them at sea, destroy them as they approach Taiwan’s coastlines and annihilate them on the beaches,” it added.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS