China’s recent use of balloons indicates a shift to “complex” joint military operations that Taiwan must take seriously, a former army general said yesterday, as the Ministry of National Defense spotted Chinese balloons floating over Taiwan proper for the third consecutive day.
Writing in a newsletter published by the Institute of National Defense and Security Research, retired army major general Ko Yung-sen (柯永森) said that balloons have joined aircraft and ships in Beijing’s military harassment of Taiwan.
China’s joint deployment of systems ranging from spy satellites, balloons, drones, fighter jets, warships and submarines suggests it has achieved the transition to a “multi-domain, full-spectrum model of military operations,” he said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
The ministry is urged to account for the increase of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) operational capabilities in its force design and strategic plans, especially as the nation confronts an aging crisis on top of pressing military needs, Ko said.
Already the Chinese military has incorporated the operational model in its ongoing campaign to ratchet up military pressure on Taiwan, which appears to take aim at influencing the elections on Saturday next week, he said.
The ministry on Dec. 8 last year detected a balloon 101 nautical miles (187.052km) southwest of Keelung at an altitude of 6,400.8m, moving east toward Taiwan, Ko said.
Although Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said that the balloon was likely a weather observation unit that drifted off course after being caught in winds, its appearance coincided with the movements of PLA aircraft and warships that day, he said.
China sent the aircraft carrier Shandong into the Taiwan Strait on Dec. 11, the day presidential candidates drew lots for placement on the ballot, Ko said.
On Dec. 17, the ministry spotted two balloons crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line from a point 110 nautical miles to the northwest of Keelung at an altitude of 8,229.6m, he said.
On Dec. 17 it spotted two balloons 110 nautical miles from Keelung at less than 8,229.6m, later crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line, Ko said.
A day later, it detected a balloon 67 nautical miles northwest of Keelung at an altitude of 4,572m, which also crossed the median line, he said.
The balloon sightings occurred in synch with PLA aircraft, drones and ships conducting movements over and around Taiwan proper, while their loiter time steadily increased from 30 minutes to 2.45 hours, he said.
These incidents were part of Beijing’s “gray zone” operations conducted to normalize Chinese territorial claims over the Strait’s waters and reduce the threat awareness of Taiwanese, Ko said.
Separately, the ministry said that at least one Chinese balloon floated across Taiwan proper for the third day in a row.
Three Chinese balloons, six aircraft and six ships crossed the median line of the Strait, with one balloon traversing nearly across the width of Taiwan and one following a similar trajectory before disappearing, the ministry said.
The balloon’s flight path as indicated by the ministry meant that it flew in the airspace over the Ching Chuan Kang Air Base in Taichung.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
MEDICAL: The bills would also upgrade the status of the Ethical Guidelines Governing the Research of Human Embryos and Embryonic Stem Cell Research to law The Executive Yuan yesterday approved two bills to govern regenerative medicine that aim to boost development of the field. Taiwan would reach an important milestone in regenerative medicine development with passage of the regenerative medicine act and the regenerative medicine preparations ordinance, which would allow studies to proceed and treatments to be developed, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) told reporters at a news conference after a Cabinet meeting. Regenerative treatments have been used for several conditions, including cancer — by regenerating blood cells — and restoring joint function in soft tissue, Wang said. The draft legislation requires regenerative treatments
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater