A Taiwanese vessel used in a drug smuggling operation was equipped with a Chinese navigation system to evade law enforcement, attorney Huang Hsin-ying (黃馨瑩), a Taiwan Statebuilding Party legislative candidate, said on Tuesday. The use of China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System threatened national security, Central News Agency (CNA) cited Huang as saying.
BeiDou, which is used by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is a two-way system. The more Taiwanese vessels that use it, the more tracking data China has access to — data that could bolster the positioning capabilities of the PLA in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.