The government will ask Japan and other neighboring nations for help in the search for the Mirage 2000 fighter that went missing off the northeast coast of Taiwan two days ago, Minister of National Defense Feng Shih-kuan (馮世寬) told lawmakers yesterday.
The ministry is planning to expand the search area, Feng told a hearing of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee.
Given that the first 72 hours of any rescue mission are crucial to saving lives, the government is going to ask the Japan Coast Guard and others for assistance.
Photo: CNA, provided by the Ministry of National Defense
Asked about rumors that the pilot could have defected to China, Feng said he found such suggestions infuriating.
It was incredible that people might think a Republic of China (ROC) Air Force pilot would defect to China, he said, adding: “I will not tolerate such remarks.
The single-seat Mirage 2000 piloted by Captain Ho Tzu-yu (何子雨) disappeared from radar tracking 34 minutes after taking off from Hsinchu Air Base on Tuesday evening for a regular training exercise, the Air Force Command said.
The aircraft was about 90 nautical miles (166.7km) north-northeast of Keelung when it vanished from radar screens at 6:43pm, it said.
There has been no sign of the plane, wreckage or an oil slick, the ministry said yesterday.
The air force, navy and Coast Guard Administration sent helicopters, a frigate and other vessels to an area near Pengjia Islet (彭佳嶼) on Wednesday afternoon after an intermittent distress signal was picked up, apparently from the pilot, but found no sign of him.
Despite Feng’s comments, cross-strait pilot defections are not unheard of.
There were at least eight defections by China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force pilots between 1960 and 1989, when the pilots flew to Taiwan, while several others flew their planes to South Korea and eventually made their way to Taiwan.
Two ROC Air Force pilots defected to China in May 1968.
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