Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers voiced their disapproval of a report by the legislature’s Legislative Research Bureau recommending that the government reduce swathes of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ).
In the report titled A Brief Analysis of Issues Pertaining to the Country’s ADIZ — which was later withdrawn from the Legislative Yuan’s Web site — the agency said that the zone’s southwestern portion overlaps with air corridors that Chinese warplanes must take to conduct exercises outside of the Bashi Channel.
This means that Taiwan’s air force must scramble fighter jets in response to routine air and sea drills conducted by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), it said, adding that this stresses the endurance of the nation’s fighter pilots.
Photo: Reuters
As Beijing is sure to conduct further maritime drills, the agency recommended that the Ministry of National Defense adjust the scope and range of the zone.
“Taiwan’s ADIZ does not need to be adjusted — the personnel of the Organic Laws and Statutes Bureau do,” DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said in a YouTube video posted on Saturday.
The recommendation put forward by the agency is tantamount to fleeing from the enemy wherever they advance and pretending that problems cease to exist if they are not acknowledged, he said, adding that the authors of the report “are experts in being Ah Q,”
“Ah Q” is a reference to Chinese essayist Lu Xun’s (魯迅) 1921 novella The True Story of Ah Q about an ignorant peasant who copes with disasters by proclaiming triumph without a basis in fact.
The government has numerous other options that are better than abandoning parts of the zone; for example, making more resources available to the military or cooperating with friendly nations in joint efforts to deter Beijing’s militarism, Wang said.
Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃) and Secretary-General Lin Jih-jia (林志嘉) should launch an investigation into the authoring of the report, Wang added.
DPP Legislator Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) on Friday also criticized the report, saying that it was an exercise in school themes not grounded in reality, and that legal concerns raised have no application in the nation’s ongoing struggle with Beijing.
South Korea and Japan, which have also seen incursions into their defense zones, have not expressed an intention to make concessions in the boundaries of their airspace, she said.
Taiwanese fighter pilots have comported themselves according to international protocols when responding to PLA warplanes amid verbal provocations from Chinese pilots over the airwaves, she said.
The agency’s report echoed comments made last year by retired air force general Hsia Ying-chou (夏瀛洲) in the Chinese-language Global Times that Taiwan’s ADIZ is part of Chinese territory into which Beijing is entitled to send warplanes at will, Liu said.
The agency should conduct an internal audit regarding the “confused report whose content has called into question the loyalty of its authors,” she said.
The political sensitivity of the topic is one reason the report was pulled from online, a source said on condition of anonymity.
However, the agency’s function is to provide multiple perspectives for the reference of governmental officials, the source added.
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