Taiwan should develop asymmetric anti-access weapons to counter the burgeoning capabilities of Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels, the Institute for National Defense and Security Research said in its annual report on China.
The expansion of the PLAN’s capabilities and frequent activities by Chinese warships are part of Beijing’s strategy of exerting control over and isolating the Taiwan Strait, the Taipei-based institute said in the 2022 Report on the Development of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politics and Military, which was published last month.
The PLAN aircraft carrier Liaoning has transitioned from training in China’s near seas to conducting war games in the western Pacific, showing an intent to use the ship in containing US forces based in the region, it said.
Photo: Bobby Yip, Reuters
Meanwhile, other Chinese warships have moved beyond the Bashi Channel and Miyako Strait to the seas between Taiwan and the Japanese island of Yonaguni, it said, adding that the PLAN has transited these waters in nine operations involving 13 ships.
These movements indicate that China is seeking to seize this part of the sea to sever an important line of communication while simultaneously containing Taiwanese and Japanese warships there, the institute said.
Taiwan will have to develop a strategy of multi-layered denial to prevail in a David versus Goliath conflict against superior Chinese forces, it said.
Sea denial requires the use of submarines, land-based and ship-based anti-ship missiles, missile boats and underwater suicide drones, it said.
Submarines — the best naval asymmetric weapons system — should mainly be deployed to the north and south of Taiwan proper to prevent penetration by the PLAN of the Bashi Channel and Miyako Strait and supplement the resiliency of the nation’s air and land denial capabilities, it said.
The military is to receive a prototype of the indigenous submarine before 2025, batches of Hsiung Feng III/IIIE and Harpoon missiles this year through 2030 and 10 Tuo Chiang-class corvettes before 2026, while negotiations to procure US-made underwater suicide drones are ongoing, it said.
PLAN ships conducted 661 movements in the seas surrounding Taiwan from August to December last year, the report said.
Separately, the Ministry of National Defense yesterday said it detected three Chinese military vessels and 16 military aircraft in the seas and airspace surrounding Taiwan.
These include a Xian JH-7 fighter-bomber that crossed over the median line of the Taiwan Strait, and one BZK-007 drone and two J-16 jets that entered the southwestern air defense identification zone, it said.
Taiwan’s armed forces monitored the situation and tasked combat air patrol aircraft, navy vessels and land-based missile systems to respond to China’s actions, it added.
Additional reporting by CNA
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,