China has successfully developed a laser cannon with a range of over 100km and might have already deployed it in Fujian Province facing Taiwan, defense sources said yesterday.
Intelligence shows that the laser cannon might be able to paralyze the command and control systems of the military which are concentrated in the western parts of the country.
In response, the military has requested a NT$1 billion fund for preparations against potential laser attacks from China in the future.
A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that there were two different stories about the development and deployment of the new Chinese weapon.
"One version goes that the weapon is still under development. Another is that the weapon has already been deployed across the Taiwan Strait and that there are around 20 units in service," the official said.
"We tend to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. We would rather believe that China has already developed such a weapon and that we should start making preparations as soon as possible," he said.
energy weapon
The laser cannon that China is believed to have successfully developed is a kind of high-energy weapon that only a few countries, such as the US and Israel, are developing.
Not much information is available from public channels as to the new Chinese weapon, but there have been quite some reports in the west about the development of laser cannons of similar or different sorts.
The US has plans to develop an airborne laser, carried on a Boeing 747 aircraft, for the purposes of shooting down ballistic missiles.
In 2000, the US and Israel successfully shot down two rockets with a jointly-developed laser cannon in tests held at a site in the US.
Chang Li-teh (
"The US' airborne laser was designed to have a range of between 200 and 300km. If the system could strike that far from an aircraft, it should be able to reach much further launched from land," Chang said.
"Such laser weapons depend on power supply for effectiveness. A land-based laser cannon has a much greater power supply than airborne one," he said.
"I do not doubt China's ability to develop a laser cannon. We can also develop such a weapon. It is up to the government's support," he said.
"It might be too early to say that China's laser cannon is already a real threat to Taiwan. More observation is needed," he said.
China has recently upped its cross-strait rhetoric ahead of next March's presidential election.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods