Thirteen Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone from 6am on Thursday to 6am yesterday, including a drone that almost circumnavigated Taiwan proper, the Ministry of National Defense said.
Flight path information released by the ministry showed the CH-4 drone flying clockwise off the northern coast of Taiwan then traveling south. It was not shown flying northward to the west of the nation.
It was the third instance that Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drones have been detected on the eastern boundary of Taiwan’s air defense zone after drones were spotted on April 28 and May 3 on slightly different flight paths, the ministry said.
Photo: Reuters
An air defense identification zone is a region beyond a country’s territorial airspace, within which identification, location and air traffic control is required by a country for national security purposes.
The CH-4 “Rainbow” is an 8.5m-long, 18m wide reconnaissance and combat drone that China claims can fire air-to-ground missiles and fly at an altitude of 5,000m, making it difficult to bring down with standard anti-aircraft weapons.
The other PLA aircraft that entered Taiwan’s zone between 6am on Thursday and 6am yesterday were two other drones — a TB-001 and a BZK-005 — two Su-30s, six J-10s and one J-16, which are all fighter jets, and a Y-8 electronic warfare aircraft, the ministry said.
All of them, except the Y-8 and J-16, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, while the J-10s and Su-30s remained close to the line before turning back, the flight paths showed.
The TB-001 and BZK-005 drones flew to the south and southeast in a counterclockwise direction relative to Taiwan, the flight data showed.
In addition to the aircraft that entered the zone, 19 other PLA planes and four vessels were detected in the region during the 24-hour period, the ministry said.
Taiwan dispatched aircraft and vessels to shadow the Chinese craft and locked onto them with land-based missiles, it said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping