A proposal to put Taiwan under the US nuclear umbrella has drawn mostly positive responses from defense experts, after Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) told lawmakers at the Legislative Yuan on Monday that Taipei and Washington are engaged in talks on the matter.
Taiwan’s national security doctrine explicitly rejects the development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, despite the nation facing the threat of such weapons being used against it, Institute for National Defense and Security research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said yesterday.
The extension of an ally’s nuclear umbrella over Taiwan would be significantly beneficial to the Taiwan’s security, he said.
Photo: Reuters
The nuclear umbrella is a deterrence strategy developed during the Cold War. The US uses it to guarantee the safety of smaller countries by threatening to retaliate in kind if those allies came under nuclear attack, he said.
Taiwan’s armed forces already provide conventional deterrence, but obtaining a nuclear deterrence would reduce its susceptibility to nuclear coercion, Su said.
Taiwan’s bid to be protected by the US nuclear umbrella would depend on domestic and international factors, including the outcome of the presidential election next year, Lu Hsin-chi (盧信吉), an assistant professor of international politics at National Chung Hsing University, told an Institute for National Policy Research forum on Monday.
The political will of Taiwanese would play a large part in the international community’s perception and assessment of the cross-strait situation, while the forcefulness of China’s reaction would also likely affect the outcome, he said.
If international and domestic conditions align, it would be possible for the US to provide Taiwan with a certain level of nuclear deterrence, including deploying ballistic missile submarines to patrol the nation’s waters, he said.
The threat of a nuclear-armed North Korea has reinvigorated the South Korea-US military alliance, with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration and US officials issuing the Washington Declaration last month, he said.
Expansion of the US nuclear umbrella over South Korea and Japan would potentially pave the way for Taiwan, he said.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS