Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

F-16 pilot confirmed killed in crash

Taipei Times

Military personnel walk past police officers yesterday in New Taipei City’s Ruifang District on their way to help in the search for a missing F-16 fighter jet and its pilot.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times

The pilot of an F-16 air force jet that went missing yesterday while taking part in the live-fire drills of the annual Han Kuang exercise has been confirmed dead, after rescuers found body parts and other items on Wufenshan (五分山) in New Taipei City.

Chinese identity was short-lived

Sebo Koh 許世模

In 1992, only 17.6 percent of Taiwanese considered themselves “Taiwanese,” but in last year’s survey by National Chengchi University (NCCU), less than 4 percent of Taiwanese considered themselves exclusively “Chinese.”

Taiwanese identity has waxed and waned over the past few centuries, influenced by various internal and external forces.

Trump sees Taiwan as reliable ally

Parris Chang 張旭成

The US did not invite the Chinese navy to participate in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise this year. This presents a good opportunity to bolster Taiwan-US military ties. The question is how the government should go about ensuring its participation in the exercise in accordance with the 2018 US National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

In comparison with former US president Barack Obama’s brain trust, US President Donald Trump’s national security team is better at telling friend from foe and seeing Beijing for what it really is. Trump’s team is also capable of proposing strategies to counter the challenges posed by China.

Confronting Chinese aggression

Taipei Times Editorial

A sign of the increasing cooperation between Taiwanese military and defense officials and their US counterparts was the presence of two senior Taiwanese officers at the change of command ceremony for the US Pacific Command in Hawaii on Wednesday.

A sign of the continued sensitivity of such ties was that the government has not publicly identified the pair, although Administrative Deputy Minister of Defense Lieutenant General Shen Yi-ming (沈一鳴) was seen in a live stream of the event on the command’s Facebook page, and Chinese-language media reports have said that Chief of General Staff Admiral Lee Hsi-ming (李喜明) was the other.

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