The Ministry of National Defense on Sunday denied a story by a local newspaper saying that the US had asked Taiwan to develop weaponized biological agents.
The ministry issued the denial in a statement addressing a report the United Daily News published on Sunday.
The United Daily News reported that the US had asked the ministry’s National Defense Medical Center to secretly acquire the ability to research and develop viruses for use in the production of bioweapons, citing the purported minutes of a secret meeting held by the government on June 23 last year.
The US’ request was addressed at that gathering and at another secret meeting in January, the United Daily News said.
The report cited a ministry representative as saying that the ministry had completed preliminary plans to construct a new biosafety level 4 (P4) laboratory to handle the development of bioweapons as requested by the US, it reported.
However, the ministry said the idea that the US was urging Taiwan to create bioweapons was untrue, and that the medical center’s mission is to detect, protect and treat pathogens that cause infectious diseases.
The center would also develop reagents that can detect bioagents to improve Taiwan’s ability to detect biological weapons, it said.
The ministry said its development of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare readiness is built around defense, adding that the center’s planned P4 lab was designed for detection, protection and treatment.
The ministry said that its Medical Affairs Bureau is planning to construct a next-generation biosafety site for research and development to further bolster biowarfare defense readiness and pandemic prevention.
In terms of international law, the nation has signed the UN’s Biological Weapons Convention, which prohibits nations from developing, stockpiling or using biological and toxin weapons.
Taiwan has since been removed from the convention after it was expelled from the UN, but it continues to abide by the pledge, the ministry said.
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