"Chinese Missile Nearly Fired in Response"
I am thankful that China's military has good discipline. Otherwise, the world will have another major crisis.
We already have enough sh*t happening elsewhere, don't need another one.
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Taiwan has notified mainland's TAO of missile blunder: MAC
The China Post news staff
July 2, 2016, 12:10 am TWN
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC, 行政院大陸委員會), responding to Taiwan's Navy's accidental launching of a missile, notified mainland China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO, 國台辦) of the mishap on Friday.
The blunder resulted in a Taiwanese fishing boat skipper's death, three injured but recovering crewmen, and a penetrated Kaohsiung-registered fishing vessel.
The government has attempted to handle the situation through the existing communications method with mainland China, the MAC stressed, according to the Central News Agency.
In a press statement, the MAC said that the council had received information of the case in the first instance. The government had also responded by setting up a national security mechanism to handle the situation.
"The Defense Ministry has explained the details of the situation," the statement read, explaining that the matter was an "accident" due to "mishandling" on military personnel's part.
Apart from alerting the TAO, the MAC also gave the green light for Taiwan's semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF, 海基會) to notify its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS, 海協會).
The council reiterated that the government continues to uphold its determination to protect peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
"We believe that the situation at hand especially highlights the importance of a cross-strait communications mechanism," the statement read.
Chinese Missile Nearly Fired in Response
According to Next Magazine (壹週刊), an unnamed naval officer overseeing radar operations revealed that a surface-to-surface missile situated across the Taiwan Strait in mainland China had nearly been activated after Taiwan's naval blunder.
The officer stated that mainland Chinese radar signals cover most of Taiwan, and when the Hsiung Feng III supersonic missile was fired, China's radar scans picked up it.
Radar scans from the naval base in Zuoying also picked up the abnormal activity in the Fujian province area, though it was almost five seconds after Taiwan's mistakenly launched missile landed in Taiwan's waters did the Chinese radar signal return to normal, the magazine reported.
Sources believe that the Chinese had put the brakes on launching its own missiles since Taiwan's missile failed to cross the Taiwan Strait's median line.