Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/02/2020
By: Matt Yu and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, March 2 (CNA) The offshore Penghu archipelago is more strategically important than the former frontline islands of Kinmen and Matsu, a Taiwanese scholar recently said, while calling on the government to bolster Penghu's defenses to prevent a Chinese invasion as losing the islands would imperil the whole country.

In a paper titled, "the Strategic Role of Penghu in the Defense of Taiwan," released late January, Paul Huang (黃恩浩), an assistant research fellow at the government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), called on the nation's armed forces to beef up Penghu's defenses, which play a crucial role in the defense of the country.

According to Huang, Penghu or the Pescadores are an archipelago of 90 islands in the Taiwan Strait, and have long been a strategic location, with the Dutch, French and Japanese all launching campaigns against the islands since the 17th century.

From an international political point of view, Penghu is the first-line of defense in the so-called "first-island chain," which refers to the major archipelagos on the East Asian continental coast that comprise the Kuril Islands, the Japanese archipelago, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the northern Philippines and Borneo.    [FULL  STORY]