The military would for the first time use the nation’s main airport for a simulation of local troops repelling Chinese paratroopers during next month’s Hang Kuang exercises, a defense official said on condition of anonymity yesterday.
The drill, planned for July 26, would mark the first time a counter-airborne assault drill is staged at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the official said.
The army’s special forces would assume the role of aggressor in the exercise, while regular ground forces would act as the defenders, the official said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Flights would be suspended for an hour during the exercise, and the Ministry of National Defense would inform airlines and civil aviation authorities about the details at an appropriate time, the official said.
This year’s Han Kuang military exercises are to take place from July 24 to 28.
The live-fire component of the military exercises next month would also for the first time hold an emergency landing and takeoff drill at a civilian airport in Taitung County, and would involve the use of F-16 jets and C-130H Hercules transport aircraft, a military source said on Saturday.
Photo: Taipei Times
The drill will be staged at Taitung Fengnian Airport, which opened in 1981.
The purpose of the drill is to test Taiwan’s civilian airports and emergency landing strips to make sure they are capable of handling takeoff and landing missions in wartime, the source said.
In other news, the military yesterday reiterated that it would strike Chinese warships and warplanes in defense if they were detected within Taiwan’s 12-nautical-mile (22.2km) territorial space.
The comment came after Chinese warplanes on Saturday were spotted flying close to the airspace under Taipei’s control for the first time in six months.
The ministry said that 19 Chinese warplanes were detected around Taiwan from 6pm on Friday to 6am on Saturday, including an unspecified number of J-10 and J-16 fighters.
Among the 19, eight crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and approached the outer boundary of the contiguous zone, which is 24 nautical miles from Taiwan’s shore.
Although the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has frequently sent planes and ships in the vicinity of Taiwan and flown over the median line, it rarely sends them near Taipei’s contiguous zone.
In other news, Mike Rogers, chairman of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Armed Services, arrived last night in Taiwan for a three-day visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Rogers, a Republican, is leading a bipartisan congressional delegation that includes Democratic US representatives Adam Smith, Joe Courtney, John Garamendi and Jill Tokuda, and Republican US representatives David Rouzer, Gary Palmer, James Moylan and Corry Mills.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) extended her welcome to the US legislators and is to receive the delegation this afternoon, Presidential Office spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka said last night.
The Tsai administration hopes that the US lawmakers’ visit will facilitate a deepening of trade and security ties between Taipei and Washington, and contribute to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, she said.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS