Foreign
TAIWAN’S Ministry of National Defence said no Chinese surveillance balloons have ever been detected over the island.
The defence ministry was reacting to a report by Financial Times on Monday which claimed that Taiwan had observed dozens of Chinese military balloon flights in its airspace.
The ministry said that the Chinese balloons that were sighted were for meteorological purposes.
“Such freely floating balloons in the troposphere, detected in the surroundings of Taiwan, are hardly able to conduct intelligence work,’’ Maj.-Gen. Wen-Chi Huang, assistant deputy chief of the General Staff for Intelligence under the ministry said on Tuesday.
According to Huang, Taiwan has not detected any floating objects threatening its security.
He said that if such an object was identified, the armed forces would shoot it down whenever it entered Taiwan’s territory.
Huang rejected the suggestion that Taiwan may have failed to fully monitor Chinese balloons.
“We have closely monitored all flying objects in the surrounding areas or entering our airspace,’’ Huang told a news conference.
Huang said large Chinese surveillance balloons, such as the one Washington said it shot down recently over U.S. waters, have control directions and their own propulsion system.
He said Taiwan had never spotted such balloon, adding that the Chinese balloons detected by Taiwan radar were smaller and lighter and usually end up exploding at a certain height. (dpa/NAN)
KN
Tags: Gen. Wen-Chi Huang
