Taiwan’s centerpiece of an air defense system, the AN/FPS-115 PAVE PAWS long-range radar in Hsinchu County’s Leshan (樂山), is expected to cost NT$2.39 billion (US$75.01 million) to maintain next year, the Ministry of National Defense’s budget for the next fiscal year showed.
The ultra-high-frequency radar deployed as a fixed installation has a reported maximum range of greater than 5,500km, enough to probe into China’s hinterland, Indochina and the South China Sea, sources said.
The system was operationally activated in February 2013.
Photo: Taipei Times file
The ministry allocated NT$5 million to install an identification system and NT$147 million to maintain the PAVE PAWS’ auxiliary systems in addition to the maintenance of the radar itself, the budget showed.
The radar maintenance budget is only this year’s portion of a much larger continuing technical support program linked to the system that would run over the next four years, it said.
When asked about the costs of the radar, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said on condition of anonymity that the PAVE PAWS system provides Taiwan with sophisticated and highly classified US technology.
US technicians perform the maintenance of proprietary technologies to ensure the system can operate effectively without compromising secrecy, they said, adding that a team of US engineers is stationed in Taiwan for this purpose.
Despite the high maintenance cost associated with it, operating the PAVE PAWS system is necessary for the nation to have the important capability of tracking Chinese missiles, they said.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s recent military exercises, including those that involved firing missiles into Taiwan’s eastern seas, were monitored by the PAVE PAWS system, the official said.
The continuing technical support of the long-range radar is arranged with the US for five-year periods, with the first period starting in 2012, the second in 2017 and the third in last year.
The current technical support increment would cost the nation NT$16.6 billion.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
RSS