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.
Seven of the 17 NT$10 million (US$311,604) winning receipts from the November-December uniform invoice lottery remain unclaimed as of today, the Ministry of Finance said, urging winners to redeem their prizes by May 5. The reminder comes ahead of the release of the winning numbers for the January-February lottery tomorrow. Among the unclaimed receipts was one for a NT$173 phone bill in Keelung, while others were for a NT$5,913 purchase at Costco in Taipei's Neihu District (內湖), a NT$49 purchase at a FamilyMart in New Taipei City's Tamsui District (淡水), and a NT$500 purchase at a tea shop in New Taipei City's
Taiwanese officials were shown the first of 66 F-16V fighter jets purchased by Taiwan from the United States, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, adding the aircraft has completed an initial flight test and is expected to be delivered later this year. A delegation led by Deputy Minister of National Defense Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) visited Lockheed Martin’s F-16 C/D Block 70 (also known as F-16V) assembly line in South Carolina on March 16 to view the aircraft. The jet will undergo a final acceptance flight in the US before being delivered to Taiwan, the
Deliveries of delayed F-16V jets are expected to begin in September, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said today, after senior defense officials visited the US last week. The US in 2019 approved a US$8 billion sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 jets to Taiwan, a deal that would take the nation’s F-16 fleet to more than 200 jets, but the project has been hit by issues including software problems. Koo appeared today before a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which is discussing different versions of the special defense budget this week. The committee is questioning officials today,
TALENT SCOUTING: The university is investing substantial funds in its future to bring in the kind of researchers that would keep the college internationally competitive National Taiwan University (NTU) plans to invest NT$2 billion (US$62.6 million) to launch two programs aimed at attracting and retaining top research talent, university president Chen Wen-chang (陳文章) said yesterday. The funding would support the “Palm Grove Scholars Project,” which targets academics aged 40 to 55. Up to 20 scholars would be selected, each receiving as much as NT$10 million annually, Chen said. The initiative is designed to attract leading researchers to Taiwan and strengthen NTU’s global competitiveness by fostering a more research-friendly environment and expanding international collaboration, he said. NTU is also introducing a “Hong Hu” chair grant, which would provide Palm
RSS