Taiwan 'pleased to provide' ASF case info to China if confirmed: MAC

Taipei, Oct. 23 (CNA) Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said Thursday it is "pleased to provide" details to China on a suspected African swine fever (ASF) case once it is confirmed, even though Beijing refused to provide similar information to Taipei back in 2018.

"If the Chinese side wants the information, we won't be small-minded --- we are pleased to provide it," MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a regular news briefing in Taipei.

His remarks followed a Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) news conference on Wednesday that said pigs on a farm in Wuqi District, Taichung, central Taiwan, tested positive for the nucleic acid of the ASF virus Tuesday, marking the first suspected domestic outbreak of the infectious disease in Taiwan.

According to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), 68 countries and territories -- including China -- have reported ASF since 2022. Taiwan could become the 69th, pending confirmation tests currently being conducted by the MOA.

"Back in 2018, when the ASF outbreak first broke out in China, we asked the Chinese side for information, but they did not respond," Liang said, noting the two sides have a cross-strait agreement relating to cooperation on agricultural product quarantine and inspection.

As both sides are members of WOAH and the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Chinese authorities are required to report outbreak data to those bodies, which later allowed Taiwan to obtain information on China's 2018 ASF outbreak, Liang added.

Once the Taichung ASF case is confirmed, Liang said, Taiwan will report it to WOAH and the WTO, and welcomes the Chinese side to obtain the information from Taiwan, though it will be the same as that submitted to the two international bodies.

Survey Results

During the briefing, Liang also released the results of an MAC-commissioned survey on public views of President Lai Ching-te's (賴清德) Oct. 10 National Day address.

Of the more than 1,000 respondents, 75.5 percent backed Lai's pledge to accelerate construction of the "T-Dome" and establish "a rigorous air defense system" to protect the lives and property of Taiwanese citizens, according to survey results provided by MAC.

Lai, at the time, did not provide details on the "T-Dome" system, but a Reuters report published a day earlier cited multiple unnamed sources that said the T-Dome -- or Taiwan Dome -- is modeled after Israel's "Iron Dome" missile defense network, aiming to counter increasingly complex threats, including drones, rockets, missiles and military aircraft.

The survey also touched on other cross-strait issues, including a series of bounties issued on Oct. 11 by the Chinese city of Xiamen's public security bureau which published the photographs, names and Taiwanese ID numbers of 18 individuals it described as "core members" of the Taiwanese military's "psychological warfare unit."

Liang said 83.7 percent of respondents did not agree with the Chinese authorities issuing bounty notices "to smear Taiwan's military personnel."

"76.7 percent of respondents supported the president's call for China to renounce the use of force ... while 79.4 percent supported the assertion the Republic of China (Taiwan's official name) and the People's Republic of China (China's official name) are not subordinate to each other," he added.

The survey was conducted by market research company Taiwan Real Survey from Oct. 17-20 through telephone interviews with adults aged 20 and above in Taiwan.

According to the MAC, 1,070 valid samples were collected, with a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.