The Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems should conduct a strict review of the Chinese firm chosen to be the supplier of automatic door systems for the MRT Circular Line, Taipei City Councilor Vincent Chao (趙怡翔) said yesterday.
French company Alstom, which is to supply trains for the line, selected China’s Nanjing Kangni (南京康尼機電) for the door systems, although the company has never worked in Taiwan and has a spotty safety record, Chao said.
Nanjing Kangni is based in Nanjing, China, and its largest shareholder is a Chinese state-owned enterprise. It has multiple records of safety incidents in other locations.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
In late 2019 and January 2020, train doors on the New York City subway opened while trains were in motion, forcing 298 trains to stop running.
A similar incident occurred in March 2023 on the Dalian Metro’s fifth line in China.
After the incident in New York, a US senator questioned whether Chinese state-backed capital in the US railway system posed a national security threat, the Democratic Progressive Party councilor said.
The city government should carefully review the investment process and strengthen requirements for contractors’ self-management, he said.
The Taipei City Government can require winning bidders to be responsible for subcontractors, but ultimately bears final oversight responsibilities, lawyer Chin Jui-yun (秦睿昀) said.
According to Article 11 of National Security Act (國家安全法), businesses from China, Hong Kong and Macau cannot work on defense facilities, but the MRT is not classified as such a facility, Chin said.
To address the root issue using legislation would require that the MRT, railways and high-speed rail be classified as part of defense-related infrastructure, he said.
The contract stipulated that the general contractor supplying cars for the new line could not be Chinese, but there was no such regulation for subcontractors, the department’s Electrical and Mechanical Design Division said.
Ultimately the bid must be reviewed by the city government and only after passing testing can production start, although the case has not yet been submitted, it said.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Taiwan's first indigenous defense submarine, the SS-711 Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), departed for its 13th sea trial at 7am today, marking its seventh submerged test, with delivery to the navy scheduled for July. The outing also marked its first sea deployment since President William Lai (賴清德) boarded the submarine for an inspection on March 19, drawing a crowd of military enthusiasts who gathered to show support. The submarine this morning departed port accompanied by CSBC Corp’s Endeavor Manta (奮進魔鬼魚號) uncrewed surface vessel and a navy M109 assault boat. Amid public interest in key milestones such as torpedo-launching operations and overnight submerged trials,
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