The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) is soon to deploy larger patrol vessels to Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) in the disputed South China Sea, National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) told lawmakers yesterday.
Tsai made the remarks at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee when asked to confirm a local media report indicating that US and Chinese vessels had been spotted earlier this month near the Taiwan-controlled island.
Taiping Island, the largest of the naturally occurring Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, lies 1,600km southwest of Kaohsiung and is administered as part of the city’s Cijin District (旗津).
Photo: JR Wu, Reuters
The USS Dewey, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, completed a freedom of navigation operation near the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) on Friday, a statement by the US’ 7th Fleet said.
“This freedom of navigation operation upheld the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging restrictions on innocent passage imposed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan, and Vietnam,” the statement read.
The Chinese-language United Daily News also reported that an unidentified Chinese warship sailed near Taiping Island on Friday.
Tsai did not give a direct answer when asked to comment on the report and if any US or Chinese vessels had entered Taiwan’s territorial waters around Taiping on Friday.
He only said that the CGA had a full grasp of the movements of all foreign vessels detected near Taiping, declining to provide more details for confidentiality reasons.
If a foreign vessel sails within 12 nautical miles (22.2km) of Taiping, the CGA would report the incident to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the latter would take appropriate measures, he said, without elaborating.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) and Charles Chen (陳以信) expressed concerns over an increase in confrontations between US and Chinese military ships in the South China Sea and asked whether the government would have better ways to protect the island.
“In the past, I made motions that we should have marines stationed on Taiping Island, but I did not receive any response to my motions. I am making the same motion again this time as we are reviewing the National Security Bureau’s budget plan,” Chiang said.
“As marines have already been stationed on the Pratas Islands [Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島], another Taiwanese territory in the South China Sea, and waters near Taiping Island could become a flashpoint for conflicts, we should elevate the power of intimidation to protect Taiping Island, which could be invaded by another country during conflicts,” Chiang said.
Tsai said the bureau has been analyzing Chinese military activities around Taiping Island and has proposed response plans.
“The Coast Guard Administration is deploying larger ships to regularly patrol Taiping Island, which should help stabilize the situation there,” he said. “We need to asses the situation and take appropriate actions accordingly. If the situation is not in our favor, any actions from our part would escalate regional tensions.”
About 200 coast guard personnel trained by the Marine Corps are stationed on Taiping and drills are held regularly.
The island is also claimed by Vietnam, China and the Philippines.
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
‘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
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS