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After Taiwan noticed Chinese language balloons flying over its important island, the Ministry of Nationwide Protection (MND) in Taipei accused Beijing of conducting ‘cognitive warfare’ towards Taiwanese individuals simply days earlier than the final election.
Two extra Chinese language balloons had been detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which serves because the de facto boundary between Taiwan and China, on Friday. One among them flew over the Taiwan island itself, the ministry mentioned Saturday in a strongly-worded statement.
On Jan. 13, the Taiwanese go to polls in presidential and parliamentary elections seen as very important for cross-strait relations.
The MND solely started disclosing China’s balloon incursions in December 2023 and has up to now reported the sighting of 19 balloons, together with six that entered the island’s airspace.
An airspace is a portion of the ambiance above a rustic’s territory, to which it holds unique sovereignty.
Specialists say the balloons are doubtless meteorological as most of them fly at a comparatively low altitude.
The MND mentioned, based on their analyses, “the principle objective of the just lately detected airborne balloons is to conduct grey zone actions, making an attempt to make use of cognitive warfare to have an effect on the morale of Taiwanese individuals.”
Cognitive warfare, typically generally known as psychological warfare, refers to actions designed to manage the psychological state and habits of different individuals.
The drifting paths of the balloons “posed a critical menace to the security of many worldwide flights,” the ministry mentioned in an announcement despatched to reporters.
It added that the Taiwanese army is maintaining a detailed watch and would notify civil aviation authorities about any new developments, whereas “condemning the Chinese language Communist Celebration for its disregard of aviation security and for the security of passengers on either side of the Taiwan Strait and internationally.”
‘Hyping China’s menace’?
Wendell Minnick, a Taipei-based veteran Chinese language army watcher, mentioned the balloons may very well be an air site visitors drawback for airliners at 30,000 ft (9.1km).
“Sucking one in every of these into the engine would end in a crash,” Minnick advised Radio Free Asia.
“However these climate balloons usually are not uncommon; they arrive from two totally different climate balloon stations in China,” mentioned Minnick. “Now that Taiwan’s MND has begun mentioning them, they must maintain doing so.”
Chinese language media retailers, in the meantime, mentioned they had been “innocent climate balloons” and accused the Taiwanese authorities of “hyping the mainland menace.”
“It’s evident that climate balloons pose no menace to anybody, nonetheless, media retailers within the U.S. and Taiwan island use them to perpetuate the ‘mainland menace concept’,” mentioned the state-run World Occasions in an editorial on Thursday.
The World Occasions talked about the incident that occurred in early 2023 when U.S. authorities accused China of flying a spy balloon over the continental U.S.
Within the so-called “2023 Chinese language balloon incident,” the Pentagon despatched a stealth F-22 Raptor fighter jet to shoot down what it mentioned was a Chinese language high-altitude surveillance platform within the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 4.
China mentioned it was a climate balloon that was blown off track, however the incident led to additional tensions within the already problematic China-U.S. relations.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
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