Taiwan yesterday downed a civilian drone after weeks of complaints about incursions by uncrewed aerial vehicles from China, a sign Taipei is pushing back against Beijing’s efforts to encroach on its territory.
Taiwanese troops shot the drone down near Kinmen’s Shi Islet (獅嶼) at about noon after attempts to repel it failed, a statement from the garrison on the Taipei-held outpost just off China said.
That followed incidents on Tuesday and Wednesday in which Taiwanese soldiers fired warning shots and flares at civilian drones that approached the nation’s outlying islands.
Photo courtesy of retired Kinmen teacher Hung Ching-chang
The military is trying to reaffirm limits on Chinese presence near its territory after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei early last month.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in a speech on Tuesday urged the military to craft a strong response to China’s pressure campaign without prompting further escalation.
“Drones are part of China’s gray-zone tactics and cognitive warfare against Taiwan,” said Kuo Yu-jen (郭育仁), director of the Institute for National Policy Research in Taipei. “The incursions are an attempt to humiliate Taiwan’s military. Taiwan’s government first responded to it cautiously, and only turned tougher when they became more frequent.”
Photo courtesy of the Kinmen Defense Command
Chinese troops held unprecedented exercises for several days around Taiwan after Pelosi’s visit, including firing ballistic missiles over Taiwan proper.
Taipei has reported that an average of more than 10 Chinese warplanes have crossed the US-drafted median line that divides the Taiwan Strait each day since Pelosi’s visit, data compiled by Bloomberg News showed.
The drones’ flights over the outlying islands started in late July, although neither side has specified where they are coming from.
The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper has said that “the frequent flights of civilian drones from the mainland [China] expose the Taiwan armed forces’ weak defenses.”
“China meant to test the response of Taiwan’s military in offshore islands like Kinmen by sending those drones, and also used these small-scale events to see how Taiwanese society responds to them,” said Crystal Tu (杜貞儀), assistant research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research. “They may also try to see whether there are loopholes in the procedure or response that they can further take advantage of.”
The Ministry of National Defense told lawmakers that China’s encroachments pose “severe military challenges,” a report seen by Bloomberg said.
Major General Lin Wen-huang (林文皇), who is in charge of combat planning at the ministry, told reporters that Taiwan would repel Chinese forces if they were to enter its territory.
“The closer the incursions are to Taiwan, the stronger our countermeasures will be,” Lin said.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS