NCSIST has booked area up to 300 km from Taitung coast

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/24
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As China continues to send warplanes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), the island’s main weapons developer announced Thursday (Sept. 24) it was conducting two days of live-fire missile tests off Taitung County.

The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST, 國家中山科學研究院) said there was “no ceiling” for the height of the missile tests, while their reach stretched 300 kilometers into the Pacific, encompassing the waters off the counties of Hualien and Taitung, including Orchid Island, CNA reported.

While neither the NCSIST nor the military revealed more details about the Sept. 24-25 event, defense experts speculated the tests centered on Hsiung Feng III supersonic anti-ship missiles or Sky Bow III surface-to-air missiles.

Another possibility was that the weapons developer was putting a new yet-to-be-unveiled missile system through its paces, CNA reported. The projectiles were likely to be fired from the Jiupeng base in Pingtung County.    [FULL  STORY]