A Chinese blockade of Taiwan would be an act of war and have far-reaching consequences for international trade, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said yesterday, after drills by China last week practiced such a scenario.
Beijing has over the past five years staged almost daily military activities around Taiwan, including war games that have practiced blockades and attacks on ports.
China’s latest war games named “Joint Sword-2024B” were carried out on Monday last week, which Beijing said included simulating blockading ports and areas, and assaulting maritime and ground targets.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a legislative hearing, Koo said that while “Joint Sword-2024B” delineated the exercise area, there were not any no-flight or no-sail zones.
The Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee held a hearing on how the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is attempting to gradually box Taiwan in with its “gray zone” and “anaconda” strategies, and how the nation would ensure the provision of materials for critical industries, infrastructure, power generation, food security, medical goods and daily necessities under such conditions.
Koo told lawmakers that blockades, as defined under international law, are acts of war in which a country’s air and sea traffic are completely embargoed by an enemy nation using military force.
“Under UN General Assembly Resolution 3314, blockades are categorized as an act of aggression,” Koo said. “I want to stress that drills and exercises are totally different from a blockade, as would be the impact on the international community.”
A blockade would have consequences beyond Taiwan, as one-fifth of global freight passes through the Taiwan Strait, he said.
“The international community could not sit by and just watch,” Koo said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Loh Mei-ling (羅美玲) said that last year Taiwan imported 96.7 percent of its energy resources, and the legally required stockpiles are 90 days for crude oil, 30 days for coal and eight days for liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Given that natural gas is expected to account for half of the nation’s energy production by 2025, Loh asked what Taiwan should do if it is blockaded by the PLA.
The current stockpile amount exceeds the legal minimum, although there is less LNG than other energy resources, State-owned Enterprise Commission Director Hu Wen-chung (胡文中) said.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has plans to build three additional natural gas terminals and once those are completed, Taiwan could have up to 14 days of LNG stockpiled, he said.
In the event of a blockade, energy usage would be expected to decrease, and the actual store of LNG would exceed 14 days, he added.
The ministry can resort to converting decommissioned coal-fired power stations into emergency backup plants, given the larger stockpile of coal compared with LNG, Hu said.
Meanwhile, National Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology president Lee Shih-chiang (李世強) said the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has non-lethal munitions such as stun and paint munitions, and these could be used to deter the China Coast Guard (CCG) or its maritime militias.
CGA Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-Chin (謝慶欽) said when China held its exercises, the agency designated two ships to monitor each CCG ship participating in the drills, adding that the CGA was ready to intervene had the CCG ships attempted to board fishing or commercial ships in the exercise zone.
Separately, the Ministry of Digital Affairs launched the Project Testing Information Network Resilience using the Program for the Digital Resilience Validation of Emerging Technologies for Contingency or Wartime Applications in July, which was aimed at verifying the feasibility of non-geostationary satellite orbits as an emergency backup communication network and achieved total coverage over Taiwan.
However, Koo said that the bandwidth provided by the network resilience project was insufficient for the military’s purposes.
In addition, a report the National Science and Technology Council submitted to the legislature showed that the Hsinchu, Taichung and Tainan science parks have been designated as critical infrastructure.
In addition to operating dual backup strategies for electricity, power and gas, a critical new measure is setting up defense systems to combat drone attacks, it says.
The science parks have been designated as no-fly zones, and last year, security services purchased drone jammers, it says.
By the end of this year, the parks will have completed setting up a new drone detection system and countermeasures to combat drone swarm attacks, the report says.
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