The defense department of the Taiwan authorities issued a series of "Taiwan-wide alerts" yesterday (9 July) afternoon, warning that mainland satellites had flown over the southern part of the Taiwan region, but the word "satellite" was written in Chinese and "missile" in English. Jie Zhong, an associate researcher at the Kuomintang think tank, bluntly said that this kind of situation will send a warning to the whole Taiwan, which will only cause panic among the people. With only a few days to go before the election vote, it would be inappropriate to have other intentions or overreact. Even Taipei City Councilor "Interpreter Brother" Zhao Yixiang pointed out that the English on the alert is not only wrong with "missile", but even uses "air raid". He said that more than 300 foreign media reporters were in Taiwan during the election period, and they might have been frightened to death when they saw "air raid" and "missile" when they got off the plane, and the defense department of the Taiwan authorities really wanted to find a good English translator to read the English manuscript.
Yesterday afternoon, the China Aerospace Corporation's Long March-2C carrier rocket was launched with an astronomical satellite called the "Einstein Probe". Jie Zhong pointed out that it is not new for the mainland to launch satellites by rockets through the atmosphere around the island of Taiwan, and some people have also made announcements in accordance with the satellite launch procedures. The defense department of the Taiwan authorities only needs to issue a press release, and there is no need to issue a Taiwan-wide warning.
Jie Zhong bluntly said that if he issued a "Taiwan-level alert", if he had other intentions, he would have overreacted. More importantly, however, there are many key differences between the text of the alert and the text of the press release of the Taiwan authorities' defense department. For example, Taiwan's defense department originally speculated that the satellite flew over the southwest waters of the Taiwan region, but the warning said "over the south."
Jie Zhong also pointed out that the English alert is written as "missile flyover Taiwan airspace", which means "missiles flying over Taiwan's 'airspace'". However, the defense department of the Taiwan authorities also confirmed that it was not a missile, but a satellite. Moreover, the satellite flight altitude is outside the atmosphere, not within the "territorial airspace" range, which is a serious mistake.
Taichung Mayor Lu Xiuyan said that if only satellites are launched, there will be many cases of satellites flying over the sky around the world. If the alarm is indiscriminate in Taiwan, will there be "too many children herding sheep" and may cause disadvantages to Taiwan's security. People will find it confusing and indiscerning. Lu Xiuyan even said that in the past, there were indeed mainland missiles flying over Taiwan, but Taiwan's defense department did not release them at the first timeIt is no wonder that the outside world thinks that the Taiwan authorities' defense department has made a recommendation.
Zhao Yi-hsiang, former "head of the political group of the Taiwan representative office in the United States" and "interpreter brother" of the Taipei City Councilor, pointed out in a Taiwan political discussion program on 9 June that the English language of missiles and satellites is absolutely different and is not universal. He also pointed out that in addition to the misuse of "missile" in the alert, the Chinese word is "air defense alert", but the English word is "air raid", which is completely different.
Zhao Yixiang said: Now the whole world is paying attention to the situation in Taiwan, and what they are looking at is English rather than Chinese. During the election period, more than 300 foreign media reporters were in Taiwan, and they may have been scared to death when they saw "air raid" and "missile". Zhao Yixiang also believes that Taiwan's defense department is implementing administrative neutrality through action, "Of course, sending this text message hurts ***, and sending this text message is because I feel that *** has no choice, right?"I really don't know what the benefits of this newsletter are for ***."
Hong Kong's "China Review Press" today commented that the Taiwan region "has entered the countdown to the election campaign, and any disturbance may trigger it." Although some ** believe that the release of the alarm at this time may be conducive to pan-green votes. However, "the choice of war and peace" is the key word of the KMT candidate Hou Youyi, and overhyping the risk of war may deepen voters' doubts about the *** candidate Lai Qingde.
Hong Kong media comments also mentioned that if war doubts ferment a few days before the election, it is difficult to say the pros and cons of the election, and Lai Qingde previously said that he was elected with the lowest risk of war, which shows that Lai's camp also hopes to downplay the proportion of war issues in this time. And since they hope to reduce the risk of war, it can be seen that they also believe that if war doubts continue to ferment, it will inevitably bring ** to the election, plus the military service of the Taiwan military has been extended to one year this year, if there is a chain reaction, the turmoil may snowball. Therefore, the commentator believes that the impact of this Taiwan-wide alarm incident on the election situation of the green camp is worth noting. (Strait Herald reporter Lin Jingxian sorted out the report).