The nation must improve its maritime surveillance capabilities, as China might be planning to impose an “underwater denial zone” to stymie submarine activity, a military expert said on Sunday.
In the eight days between April 16 and Sunday, the Ministry of National Defense detected five incursions by Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Harbin Z-9 anti-submarine helicopters east and southeast of the nation’s air defense identification zone.
On Sunday, Monday and Wednesday last week, they were found southeast of the nation, then on Saturday and Sunday operated further north above the waters east of Hualien County.
The Harbin Z-9 might have been operated by a Type 054A frigate stationed nearby, the main anti-submarine ship in the PLA fleet, Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said.
Unlike the shallow basins to the nation’s west and southwest, the oceanic terrain off the east coast is complex, composed of ridges, trenches and basins, Su said.
The area has therefore become a hotspot for surveillance conducted by PLA anti-submarine aircraft, he said.
The information found on these missions would be valuable for PLA submarines to predict the movements of Taiwanese submarines, he said.
Asked why the PLA has been ramping up helicopter activity, Su said it might be related to naval training, as sea conditions are optimal in mid-to-late April.
It could also be an acceleration of operations east of Taiwan, as the PLA might be aiming to turn the waters to the east and southwest into “underwater denial zones,” he said.
The experience of the operating frigates could also be used as reference for larger amphibious ships in advance assessments for transport and attack helicopter missions, he said.
As an island nation, Taiwan has not invested enough into surveying its surrounding waters, Su said.
The data could be useful not just for military purposes, but also for the marine economy and fishing industry, he said.
If the nation improves its maritime surveillance capabilities, it could also assist strategic cooperation with like-minded partners, he added.
In related news, Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) yesterday said that Taiwan has no plan to arm its citizens, in response to a proposal by a US presidential candidate earlier this month to “put a gun in every Taiwanese household.”
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy made the comment on April 14 at an annual National Rifle Association (NRA) gathering in Indianapolis, Indiana.
“You want China not to invade Taiwan? Here is something we can do: The NRA can open its branch next time in Taiwan,” the Republican candidate said. “And you want to stop [Chinese President] Xi Jinping (習近平) from invading Taiwan, put a gun in every Taiwanese household, have them defend themselves. Let’s see what Xi Jinping does then.”
The international community has always been concerned with maintaining peace in the region and in the Taiwan Strait, Chen told reporters at an event in Taichung.
Suggestions such as Ramaswamy’s are made in the hopes of instilling a defensive mindset among Taiwanese, “but the situations are different in Taiwan and the US,” he said.
“We do not have any such plan,” Chen added.
The idea of keeping emergency stockpiles of weapons is being discussed, but Taiwan must have an autonomous defense force, he said.
Additional reporting by Hsu Kuo-chen
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater