Defense minister downplays military expert’s warning

Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) yesterday offered his reassurances after a local military expert said that Chinese warplanes are inching closer to Taiwan and could reach the Presidential Office in Taipei within minutes.

The warning by retired air force lieutenant general Chang Yen-ting (張延廷), was based on a Ministry of National Defense chart posted on Sunday last week, which showed two Chinese fighter jets crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait and getting as close as 41 nautical miles (75.9km) from Keelung.

Chang said that meant a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplane could reach the Presidential Office within four or five minutes.

This is a problem, because Taiwanese warplanes need at least six minutes to take off and intercept PLA planes, and Taiwan’s military would have little time to prepare to counter such an incursion, Chang said.

Before a fighter jet gets close to Taiwan’s airspace, the military can only track PLA warplanes with anti-air missile systems, exposing a weakness in the nation’s air defenses, Chang said.

Asked about Chang’s warning, Chiu said yesterday that Taiwan’s military has a regular intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system in place “exactly for the purpose of preventing that scenario from happening.”

He did not elaborate. However, he said that without military counterattack measures in place, “it is true that a fighter jet would reach the Presidential Office within three to five minutes” if they were 41 nautical miles from Keelung.

Chiu was also asked about media reports that a Chinese oceanographic survey and research ship — the Xiang Yang Hong No. 6 — was detected in waters off Hualien County on Monday.

He said that it is not unusual for Taiwan to identify Chinese survey and research ships in waters around Taiwan.

While the Chinese vessel was detected “at a sensitive time,” Taiwan’s coast guard and military have responses ready, he said, without elaborating.

The military began the eightday tabletop war games phase of this year’s Han Kuang exercises from Friday last week before the live-fire exercises are held on July 22 to 26. The Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s major war games, have been held annually since 1984 to test combat readiness in the face of a possible Chinese invasion.

The median line has for decades served as a tacit border between China and Taiwan, but China’s has more freely crossed it since then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022.