The Guardian-Chinese weather balloon spotted near Taiwan a month ahead of presidential election
December 8, 2023 3 min 433 words
这则报道再次突显了中台紧张关系。一架中国“气象气球”越过台海中线，正值台湾总统选举前一个月。尽管台防务部初步称其为“监视气球”，但后来却声称是“探空气球”。这是对气象气球性质的矛盾说法，引起外界质疑。中国频繁运用军事和经济手段影响台湾选举，这一次的动作显然是外交政治的一环。报道中还提到在过去24小时内，中国军机多次闯入台湾防空识别区，加剧了紧张氛围。中国过去几年对台军事压力不断升级，进行两轮大规模军演，并在最近一年半内发射导弹越过台湾。此举必然影响台海稳定，引发国际担忧。
Taiwan’s defence ministry has said that a Chinese balloon crossed the Taiwan Strait median line on Thursday, about a month before Taiwan’s presidential election.
The ministry of national defence (MND) earlier described it as a “surveillance balloon” but the defence minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng later told reporters at parliament: “our initial understanding is that it was a sounding balloon”.
A sounding balloon is a meteorology balloon which carries atmospheric measuring equipment to high altitudes. US officials have previously said large surveillance balloons are produced by the People’s Liberation Army for collecting intelligence. The Guardian has contacted the MND for clarification on what was detected on Thursday.
Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, frequently accuses Beijing of seeking to exert military or economic pressure to sway its elections toward outcomes favourable to the Chinese government.
The island will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on 13 January.
The defence ministry said the balloon was detected shortly before midday on Thursday, 101 nautical miles (187 km) southwest of the northern Taiwanese city of Keelung, and that it travelled eastward for about an hour before disappearing. An accompanying map showed a tracking line beginning near the Chinese coast and crossing the median line, which is an unofficial border splitting the Taiwan Strait.
Chinese military aircraft were also detected in Taiwan’s air defence identification zone in the last 24 hours. A reconnaissance plane and drone, 12 fighter jets and a transport plane were also detected, all reported by the MND as crossing the median line.
China has stepped up its military pressure against Taiwan over the past four years, including staging two rounds of major military exercises around the island in the past year and a half, including the firing of missiles over Taiwan.
Earlier this year, the defence ministry said a balloon that came down on a remote Taiwanese-held islet close to China’s coast was used for weather monitoring and had no audio-visual recording equipment on board. The MND has not confirmed any other detections. In June BBC Panorama reported photographs taken by Taiwan’s weather service revealed an apparent balloon flying over Taiwan’s capital Taipei in 2021. Other satellite images appeared to show balloons launched from China flying over Japan and off Taiwan’s coast.
In February the US shot down what it said was a Chinese surveillance balloon flying in its airspace. The fallout saw the collapse of attempts to repair the US-China relationship, with US secretary of state Antony Blinken cancelling a visit to Beijing. The US later said it had not collected intelligence.