DEFENSE/Taiwan defense chief sees call for more transparency as a 'dilemma'

Taipei, Dec. 18 (CNA) An American scholar's recent call for greater transparency in reporting China's military incursions into Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ) presents a difficult choice, Defense Minister Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said Wednesday.

"This is a dilemma for us," Koo told reporters on the sidelines of a legislative session in Taipei in response to the criticism.

The Ministry of National Defense (MND) wants to make information more transparent, but there are also risks to doing that, Koo said.

If the MND disclosed too much information based on the results of its surveillance of People's Liberation Army (PLA) forces, it could expose Taiwan's intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities and the potential sources of its information-gathering process, Koo said.

He pledged, however, that the military will continue to regularly review the information it releases on PLA incursions to make it more transparent, while at the same time not disclosing its sources of intelligence during the process to protect national security.

Koo was responding to questions about criticisms of Taiwan's military voiced by Thomas J. Shattuck, a special project manager at the University of Pennsylvania's Perry World House policy research center, in a recent interview with CNA.

According to Shattuck, the MND has made frequent, unexplained changes in its public reporting of Chinese military activity in recent years, undermining the campaign's effectiveness.

There have also been inconsistencies between the Chinese and English versions of the reports, and changes -- such as starting, and then halting reporting on Chinese balloons -- have been made without explanation or any clear logic, he said.

Shattuck acknowledged that the MND has a difficult task but argued that by sharing less and abruptly changing what it divulges, Taiwan risked making it seem as if the threat was "not as significant," causing people in Taiwan and the United States to care less, he said.

The MND has released a daily "real-time military update" documenting PLA incursions into Taiwan's ADIZ since September 2020 to inform people at home and abroad on the increasing Chinese military threat.

An ADIZ is a self-declared area where a country claims the right to identify, locate and control approaching foreign aircraft but is not part of its territorial airspace as defined by international law.