A three-day live-fire exercise is to be conducted from 8am to 9pm daily on Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) starting on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration’s first nighttime live-fire drill under President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the administration said on Thursday.
Itu Aba, the largest naturally occurring island in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), has been administered by Taiwan since 1956 and is also claimed by China, the Philippines and Vietnam.
The administration said that Itu Aba is threatened by nearby land reclamation work being carried out by China and Vietnam, citing Vietnam’s stationing of a company of troops on Sandy Cay (Dunqian Cay, 敦謙沙洲) about 7 nautical miles (13km) east of Itu Aba.
Chinese-held Hughes Reef (Dongmen Reef, 東門礁), Johnson South Reef (Chigua Reef, 赤瓜礁) and Gaven Reef (Nansyun Reef, 南薰礁), all within 70km of Itu Aba, are also threats due to land reclamation and the establishment of military facilities, the administration said.
The administration marked off areas within 5 nautical miles of Itu Aba as dangerous during the exercise.
Since the government’s decision in 1999 to withdraw marines from the island base, its defenses have been manned by the coast guard, with training by the marines.
Live-fire exercises are routinely carried out every season, the administration said, adding that as there is no heavy artillery on the island, its defense relies on 120mm, 81mm and 40mm mortars, as well as 20mm machine guns.
Separately, the Fisheries Agency announced that there would be live-fire exercises around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) from May 1 to May 2, which are to be carried out from 8am to 9pm, with an expected danger zone of up to 8 nautical miles.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard