TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan’s Defense Ministry says a Chinese weather balloon has landed on one of its outlying islands, amid U.S. allegations that such aircraft have been sent around the world to spy on Washington and its allies.
The ministry’s statement on Thursday said the balloon was carrying equipment registered to a state-owned electronics company in the northern city of Taiyuan.
The island it was found on, Tungyin, is part of the Matsu Island Land, located just off the coast of China’s Fujian Province.
Taiwan retained control of the islands after the sides split in 1949 during the civil war, and they are seen as a first line of defense should China follow through on its threats to bring Taiwan under its control by force if required.
Calls and messages to the company identified in the report, Taiyuan Wireless (Radio) First Factory Ltd., went unanswered. Information about the equipment was written in simplified Chinese characters used on the mainland rather than traditional Taiwanese characters, the ministry said.
China regularly sends military aircraft and warships into Taiwan’s air identification zone and across the median line of the Taiwan Strait. This led Taiwan to step up military purchases from the United States, expand domestic production of local aircraft, submarines and warships, and expand compulsory military service for all people.
AP Photo/Wally Santana, archive
Washington is Taiwan’s closest military and diplomatic ally, despite the lack of formal ties, severed in 1979. Beijing strongly opposes any contact between the island and the United States, but its aggressive diplomacy has helped build strong bipartisan support for Taipei on Capitol Hill. .
On Thursday, President Joe Biden said the US was developing “clearer rules” to track, monitor and possibly shoot down unidentified aerial objects, after three weeks of high-stakes drama sparked by the discovery of an alleged Chinese spy balloon in transit from a big. the country. .
Biden directed National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to lead an “interagency team” to review US procedures after the US shot down the Chinese balloon, as well as three other objects that Biden says the US considered most likely to be ” benign” launched by private companies. or research institutes.
While he did not express regret for the downing of the three as-yet-unidentified objects, Biden said he hoped the new rules would help “differentiate between those that may pose safety and security risks that require action and those that do not.” “. .
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