A Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drone looped Taiwan flying from north to south during the 24 hours ending at 6am on Wednesday, the Ministry of National Defense said, marking the second such PLA maneuver conducted in recent days.
The drone was one of 27 PLA aircraft and seven warships that were detected in the waters around Taiwan over the period, the ministry said in a statement.
The BZK-005 reconnaissance drone looped Taiwan proper clockwise starting from the north, flying south along the east coast and crossing through the Bashi Channel on its return within the nation’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), a map released by the ministry showed.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
The ministry said it monitored the situation and tasked aircraft, navy vessels and land-based missile systems to respond.
The movement follows a similar activity by a PLA Tengden TB-001 combat drone, which made a similar loop in the counterclockwise direction in the 24 hours ending at 6am on Friday last week.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense's Joint Staff Office released a map on Tuesday showing looping PLA drone movements over the waters east of Taiwan heading generally southward, although it did not name the class of drone.
Photo courtesy of the Japanese Ministry of Defense's Joint Staff Office
Lu Li-shih (呂禮詩), a former navy lieutenant commander, said that the drone likely entered the ADIZ before Japanese aircraft made visual contact, which is why it did not know the class.
The relatively incomplete flight map also shows that Japan’s radars cannot detect as far as the Bashi Channel, but since it confirmed it was flying in that direction, it shows a significant exchange of information between the Taiwanese and Japanese militaries, he said.
National Security Bureau Deputy Director-General Chen Chin-kuang (陳進廣) told legislators on Wednesday that the bureau is closely monitoring the situation.
Asked whether China intends to use drone activity to create “gray-zone conflict” or push red lines it has avoided in the past, Chen said the bureau has not identified any specific plans so far, but is working with its partners to gather intelligence.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Taiwan has activated backup communications for its northernmost territory, the remote and strategically located island of Dongyin (東引), after poor weather conditions apparently shifted the wreckage of a ship onto an undersea cable causing it to break. The vulnerability of undersea communication cables linking Taiwan with its outlying islands has been a persistent cause of concern for Taipei, whose government has on several occasions blamed Chinese ships for intentionally causing damage. Dongyin, home to about 1,500 people, sits in a strategic position at the top of the Taiwan Strait and the island has a heavy military presence. It does not have an
RSS