Dozens of Chinese military balloons have been spotted flying through Taiwan’s airspace in the past few years, the Financial Times reported yesterday.
“They come very frequently, the last one just a few weeks ago,” a senior Taiwanese official was quoted as saying.
Similar incursions happen once every month on average, another official said.
Photo courtesy of the Central Weather Bureau
The Ministry of National Defense only confirmed one such incident — four batches of Chinese balloons flew over northern Taiwan in February last year, it said.
Balloons were also spotted flying over Japanese, Philippine and other Asia-Pacific countries’ airspaces, but those governments have given little detail on the incursions, it said.
Chinese balloon programs have drawn global attention after one balloon was spotted and shot down by the US on Feb. 4, it said.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been “strengthening capacities it would need to invade Taiwan,” such as building up its air, naval and missile forces, conducting military exercises simulating an invasion of Taiwan, and carrying out bigger and more complex military action around Taiwan, it said.
The rising tensions between the US and China caused further concerns for possible Chinese military action, it said.
The balloons spotted in Taiwan’s airspace were often flying at about 6,000m, far lower than the one that traversed the US at about 18,000m, it quoted Taiwanese officials as saying.
They were bigger and heavier than normal meteorological balloons, which are allowed to fly through other countries’ airspaces without permission under international law, the officials said.
The balloons were developed by the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China, it cited military and intelligence officials as saying.
The balloons have been collecting atmospheric data for radar and missile systems, Taiwanese officials said.
Air pressure and density can affect the accuracy of a missile after re-entry into the atmosphere, said Kitsch Liao (廖彥棻), who is assistant director of the Global China Hub at the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council.
The atmospheric specifics can also affect over-the-horizon radars, which are long-range systems that China needs to operate in waters and airspace around eastern Taiwan, he said.
As algorithms involved in the operations require a large amount of data, and the conditions vary seasonally and annually, the “spy balloons” have to fly over repeatedly, he added.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS