Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/05
By: Huang Li-yun and Joseph Yeh
Taipei, Nov. 5 (CNA) The Ocean Affairs Council (OAC) said Monday that there is no need
CNA file photo
to postpone a scheduled live-fire exercise in the run up to the local government elections since it is a routine drill to test the coastguard’s readiness on a small island in the South China Sea.
At a legislative hearing, OAC head Hwung Hwung-hweng (黃煌煇) said the exercise was planned long ago and will be carried out Nov. 21-23 on Taiping Island and in the surrounding waters as scheduled.
It would be awkward to reschedule the Taiping drill at the last minute simply because of the Nov. 24 elections and reports of a U.S. exercise in the South China Sea, he told lawmakers.
The drill is meant to test the Taiwan coastguard’s response readiness on Taiping and Taiwan as a whole, Hwung said, in the wake of a CNN report that the U.S. was planning to conduct freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea later this month. [FULL STORY]
