A fleet of 19 Chinese military aircraft yesterday morning flew into Taiwan’s airspace in a pincer formation, marking the second consecutive day of such incursions, the Ministry of National Defense said.
Taiwan’s military responded by scrambling jets, issuing radio warnings, and mobilizing surveillance and air defense systems, the ministry said.
The Chinese aircraft fleet comprised 12 J-16 multirole strike fighters, two J-10 lightweight fighters, two J-11 air superiority fighters, two H-6 strategic bombers and a Y-8 transport plane, the ministry said.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Ministry of Defense
A ministry chart showed that the J-10 and J-11 fighters crossed the median line in the northern part of the Taiwan Strait, while the H-6 bombers and the Y-8 plane entered Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone.
A pincer movement, also known as a double envelopment, is designed to attack the enemy on two flanks.
Such maneuvers by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are provocative actions that infringe on Taiwan’s sovereignty, the ministry said, urging Beijing to exercise restraint and stop being a “troublemaker” in the region.
On Friday, 18 PLA aircraft entered Taiwan’s airspace, the ministry said.
The incursions coincided with a three-day visit by a US delegation headed by US Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment Keith Krach, who attended a memorial service yesterday for former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
The PLA flights into Taiwanese airspace might be part of a “combat exercise” aimed at intimidating the nation and wearing down its air force, a military source said.
The intrusions on Friday are another example of how China is increasingly using its military to coerce Taiwan, a US Department of Defense spokesman said.
Pentagon spokesman John Supple said that the “aggressive and destabilizing actions” by China’s military reflect “a continued attempt to alter the status quo and rewrite history.”
“This is another example of [China] increasingly using its military as a tool of coercion with Taiwan and other neighbors,” Supple said.
“Taiwan’s security — and its people’s ability to determine their future, free from coercion — remains a vital interest to the United States and is integral to regional security,” he added.
Separately, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the PLA’s actions “military blustering.”
“We sent the delegation to a funeral and the Chinese have apparently responded by military blustering. I’ll leave it at that,” Pompeo told reporters while on a visit to Guyana.
Supple declined to confirm media reports that the US is preparing to approve a large arms sale to Taiwan, saying that the government does not comment on pending arms sales or transfers before formally notifying the US Congress.
CNN on Friday reported that the US is planning to sell seven packages of weapon systems to Taiwan, citing anonymous congressional and administration sources, but said it was unclear when Congress would receive formal notification, as is required by law.
The package is expected to include a large sale of MQ-9B Reaper drones, along with associated equipment and program support, at a value of about US$600 million, said one US official cited in the article.
The most sensitive portion of the proposed package is a long-range air-to-ground missile, the Boeing-made AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER, which could be used by Taiwan’s F-16s, the New York Times reported.
After Reuters on Wednesday broke the news of the potentially imminent sale, the ministry released a statement dismissing the report as “media speculation.”
Taiwan’s military handles arms purchase deals that are under evaluation or being negotiated, based on the principles of confidentiality and discretion, the ministry said, adding that it only publicly reports such deals after the US Department of State has formally notified Congress.
Pursuing seven sales at once is a “rare departure” from years of precedent in which US military sales to Taiwan were “spaced out and carefully calibrated to minimize tensions with Beijing,” the Reuters report said.
Additional reporting by AFP
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS