The Ministry of National Defense has elaborated on the military’s countermeasures against China’s “gray-zone conflict” tactics in a comprehensive review of Taiwan’s defense strategy.
The ministry’s 2021 Quadrennial Defense Review, which was on Thursday delivered to the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee for review, highlights the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) increasing use of gray-zone conflict methods, including cognitive warfare, disinformation, and air and sea patrols.
The methods are employed by the PLA to exhaust Taiwan’s armed forces and morale, the ministry said.
Photo provided by the Coast Guard Administration via CNA
The PLA’s cognitive warfare strategy is based on the “three forms of warfare” concept, which refers to public opinion warfare, psychological warfare and legal warfare, which are conducted to create internal contradictions in Taiwan, the ministry said.
The ministry’s answer to cognitive warfare is the creation of rapid response mechanisms that use technology to counter disinformation, provide factual rebuttals across multiple media, stop public panic, and create counter-narratives with international partners, it said.
China has reorganized its forces to augment its cyberwarfare capabilities, and PLA cyberunits are deployed for intelligence gathering and for stealing military, industrial and commercial secrets, it said.
Another part of the PLA’s effort is directed toward identifying gaps in Taiwan’s cyberinfrastructure to exploit them, including attacking these targets during a war to paralyze the nation’s government, security forces and military, the ministry said.
The armed forces are to stop these threats by implementing information security mechanisms, increasing defensive capabilities and strengthening collaboration with cybersecurity agencies, it said.
The integration of military and civilian cybersecurity systems and the training of cybersecurity experts must be emphasized, the ministry added.
The PLA’s use of air and sea patrols to harass Taiwan is countered by the rapid deployment of reaction forces, the ministry said.
The military has made and will continue to make rolling adjustments to incident management protocols and the general combat readiness of the armed forces so that the military can anticipate and effectively respond to PLA actions, it said.
The command and control systems of the armed forces have facilitated intelligence sharing between Taiwan and its allies and the surveillance of enemy forces in the Taiwan Strait, and provided the nation with an early warning capability, it said.
In addition, the navy and the coast guard are committed to developing teamwork in peace and to redeploying coast guard vessels as naval assets in wartime in joint operations, it said.
The review is mandated by Article 31 of the National Defense Act (國防法), which states that the ministry must provide a review for the president within 10 months of inauguration.
921 EARTHQUAKE: The magnitude 7.3 quake left 2,456 people dead and 10,718 injured, while 53,661 houses were fully destroyed and 53,024 houses damaged The Central Weather Bureau yesterday received about 50,000 views on Facebook after it posted the data that it collected on Sept. 21, 1999, when the nation was devastated by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake. The data showed that the 921 Earthquake hit the nation at 1:47am, with the epicenter being 7km southwest of the bureau’s quake detection center in Nantou County’s Yuchi Township (魚池) at a depth of 8km. The quake left 2,456 people dead and 10,718 injured, while 53,661 houses were fully destroyed and 53,024 houses damaged, with the cost of the damage estimated at NT$300 billion (US$10.8 billion at the current
British newspaper The Mail on Sunday reported that Prince Charles met with Bruno Wang (汪家興), a Taiwanese fugitive who describes himself as a Chinese philanthropist and donated ￡500,000 (US$683,522) to the prince’s charity, the Prince’s Foundation. The newspaper reported that Wang is wanted in Taiwan on charges related to money laundering and being a fugitive from justice, allegations he denies, and drew comparisons between Wang and the Russian banker Dmitry Leus. Investigation and cooperation with foreign authorities have found that Bruno Wang’s father, Andrew Wang (汪傳浦), had stashed proceeds from a scandal involving the procurement of Lafayette frigates in 61 bank accounts,
AT ODDS: The KMT called on the government to seek bilateral dialogue with Beijing to resolve the issue that led to the ban on custard apple and wax apple imports Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials and lawmakers yesterday condemned China’s sudden ban on imports of custard apples and wax apples from Taiwan as “obvious political retaliation,” while the opposition called for a scientific investigation into Beijing’s claim to have found pests in imports of the fruits. China earlier yesterday announced a ban on the importation of the two fruits from today, citing repeated discoveries of Planococcus minor, a type of mealybug. The announcement follows a similar ban on Taiwanese pineapples imposed in February. At least Beijing gave a few days’ notice when it banned pineapple imports, an unnamed government official said yesterday. This time
BY OTHER MEANS: China could see CPTPP membership as a means of circumventing trade restrictions imposed by the US, amid an ongoing trade dispute between them The US could invoke a clause in its trade agreement with Canada and Mexico to block China’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a government official said yesterday. Under Article 32.10 of the Exceptions and General Provisions of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), if either Canada or Mexico enter a free-trade agreement with a nonmarket economy — such as China — the US could withdraw from the agreement. “If that clause applies to multilateral free-trade agreements such as the CPTPP — which Mexico and Canada are members of — that might be cause for the two
RSS