Four Chinese balloons on Tuesday drifted across the Taiwan Strait, with three of them crossing over Taiwan proper, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, following two more sightings the day before.
Tuesday’s balloons all drifted northeast and disappeared at 10:48am, 5:18pm, 7:01pm and 7:02pm, the ministry said.
They were floating at altitudes of 3,658m, 5,486m, 6,706m and 7,315m respectively, it said, adding that it was the ninth time Chinese balloons had been detected since last month.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
On Monday, two balloons were sighted, one of which crossed over Taiwan proper.
Ministry spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) did not say whether the military believed the latest balloons were for weather or espionage purposes, but the ministry has previously said that most Chinese balloons flying in the area were weather balloons.
The military closely monitors the balloons’ movements and informs civil aviation authorities, Sun said.
“The nation’s armed forces respond appropriately to unidentified balloons found entering Taiwan’s airspace based on the level of threat they pose to national security,” he said, without elaborating.
The ministry last year said that similar devices had been regularly detected around Taiwan, most often between the months of December and February, as seasonal winds bring the balloons closer to Taiwan.
The military does not believe the balloons are directly related to Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections, to be held on Saturday next week, Sun told a ministry news briefing on Tuesday last week.
Ou Si-fu (歐錫富), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the balloons are “for military coercion and psychological warfare.”
“The presidential election is coming and balloons are a kind of military intimidating tool,” he said, adding that China wants more “pro-Beijing votes.”
In the 24 hours ending at 6am yesterday, the ministry also detected nine Chinese People’s Liberation Army aircraft and four navy vessels operating near Taiwan.
Two of the aircraft — a Xian JH-7 bomber and a Harbin BZK-005 reconnaissance drone — crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait into the nation’s north and southwest air defense identification zone, the ministry said.
Beijing has in the past few years ramped up military and political pressure on the government of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and also refused to engage with her during her tenure.
It has sent an unprecedented number of warplanes and naval vessels around Taiwan, dubbed by military experts as “gray zone” tactics designed to intimidate Taiwanese.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
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
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
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