After pictures appeared online of a Chinese nuclear submarine surfacing in the Taiwan Strait near some Taiwanese fishers, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) yesterday said the military has a “grasp” of the situation.
Taiwanese media published pictures taken by a Taiwanese fishing boat in the Taiwan Strait as dawn broke yesterday. It appeared to be a nuclear-armed Jin-class ballistic missile submarine.
The vessel surfaced near the Kinmen islands.
Photo courtesy of a fisher
Asked about the submarine, Koo said the military has a “grasp” of the intelligence situation, but declined to say how it was being monitored or give any further details.
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nuclear-powered submarines can operate underwater for months at a time and ballistic-missile boats’ secretive missions mean they rarely surface.
A security source familiar with the situation said that the submarine was most likely returning to its home port in Qingdao from the South China Sea.
The source said that the submarine might have surfaced because it experienced a malfunction.
Taiwanese military experts were divided in opinion on the matter, but concurred that the abnormal event should be watched closely.
Lu Li-shih (呂禮詩), a former lieutenant commander in the navy, said that from available information, the Type 094 Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine was on a northerly course and was possibly returning to the Bohai Shipyard for routine maintenance.
According to publicly available information, the submarine was within Chinese territorial waters at the time of the sighting, Lu said.
The sub could have returned via the Taiwan Strait to avoid joint US-Japanese military exercises east of Taiwan, as the US would have detected it and recorded its acoustics, he said.
The submarine would have had to travel at periscope depth in the Taiwan Strait, making detection and recording of its acoustics possible anyway, Lu said, adding that surfacing and being escorted back to port was the ideal resolution.
Military expert Lu Te-yun (盧德允) said nuclear-powered ballistic submarines usually deliver the “first strike” in the event of war.
A Type 094 passing through the Taiwan Strait is “highly abnormal,” he said, adding that the sudden surfacing and the appearance of an escort ship could hint at the boat experiencing a mechanical malfunction.
“We must be fully alert to China’s continued military harassment and ‘gray zone’ threats and must always understand China’s constant salami-slicing attempts to unilaterally change the status quo,” Koo said.
“We must be alert at all times, but not panic nor be apathetic, and calmly deal with the situation in the Strait,” he said. “We won’t be the one provoking and we call on China not to be a troublemaker.”
Taiwan detected 20 Chinese military planes and seven vessels around the nation in the previous 24 hours, the Ministry of National Defense said in its daily report on Chinese military activities yesterday morning.
In other news, the Taiwanese military enthusiast group “Taiwan ADIZ” said that people living in Kinmen and Lienchiang counties on Monday had reported multiple Chinese civilian planes exhibiting “abnormal” behavior and deviating from civilian flight paths to fly over Kinmen and Matsu.
The air force said it registered 58 civilian planes deviating from their planned routes due to bad weather, with 15 flying over Kinmen and eight flying over Matsu.
The air force said it monitored the aircraft closely, adding that the planes had been directed to those flight paths and that aviation traffic regulators had told them to maintain an altitude of 6,100m to 12,200m.
The Civil Aviation Administration said that it had received notice from its Chinese peer that due to bad weather, Chinese planes would deviate from their flight paths and pass over the islands. It said it asked the Chinese planes not to enter Taiwan’s airspace, a request that the planes heeded.
Additional reporting by Yang Hsiao-ju, Tsai Tsung-hsien, and Tsai Yun-jung
NETWORK-MAPPING PROJECT: The database contains 170 detailed files of Taiwanese politicians and about 23 million records of household registration data in Taiwan China has developed a network-mapping project targeting political figures and parties in Taiwan to monitor public opinion during elections and to craft tailored influence campaigns aimed at dividing Taiwanese society, according to documents leaked by Chinese technology firm GoLaxy (中科天璣). The documents, collected by Taipei-based Doublethink Lab, showed a database was specifically created to gather detailed information on Taiwanese political figures, including their political affiliations, job histories, birthplaces, residences, education, religion and a brief biography about them. Several notable Taiwanese politicians are in the database, including President William Lai (賴清德), former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍),
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
RSS