• March 28, 2024

Taiwan Defense Official In Charge Of Missiles Found Dead In Hotel

On Saturday morning, a top Taiwanese missile official who was in charge of supervising Taiwan’s massive ramp-up of missile production was found dead in a hotel room, according to the country’s official Central News Agency (CNA).

Ou Yang Li-hsing, 57, who was the deputy head of the military-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), was found dead in a hotel room in southern Taiwan on Saturday morning, CNA reported.

The authorities were looking into the cause and circumstances of his death.

Ou Yang was on a business trip to the southern county of Pingtung, CNA said, adding that he had assumed the post early this year to supervise various missile production projects.

The military-owned NCSIST is working to more than double its yearly missile production capacity to close to 500 this year, as the island boosts its combat power amid what it sees as Communist China’s growing military threat.

After news broke of his death, reports said that he had officially died of a heart attack and that he had a history of heart problems.

Ou Yang’s death comes as Beijing presses ahead with exercises aimed at practicing a blockade and ultimate invasion of the democratic island after the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi enraged the Chinese government.

The US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit earlier this week marks the first visit by a US House Speaker in 25 years since Newt Gingrich came to Taiwan in April 1997, while it was also Speaker Pelosi’s first trip to Taiwan in 22 years.

Ou Yang’s death comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visited Taiwan this week to show that China could not isolate the island, which it falsely claims as its own, from the rest of the world.

More details of this report from ‘The Daily Wire’:

Pelosi’s visit to the island came despite threats from Chinese government and military officials, including a Chinese propagandist at a state-run news organization who effectively threatened that China could shoot down Pelosi’s plane.

The Washington Post published an op-ed from Pelosi shortly after she landed on the island that explained her reason for going.

Pelosi noted that under the Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. vowed to support defending Taiwan and that the act said that the U.S. would “consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means … a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.”

“Today, America must remember that vow. We must stand by Taiwan, which is an island of resilience,” Pelosi wrote. “In recent years, Beijing has dramatically intensified tensions with Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has ramped up patrols of bombers, fighter jets and surveillance aircraft near and even over Taiwan’s air defense zone, leading the U.S. Defense Department to conclude that China’s army is ‘likely preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force.’”

“The PRC has also taken the fight into cyberspace, launching scores of attacks on Taiwan government agencies each day. At the same time, Beijing is squeezing Taiwan economically, pressuring global corporations to cut ties with the island, intimidating countries that cooperate with Taiwan, and clamping down on tourism from the PRC,” Pelosi added. “In the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) accelerating aggression, our congressional delegation’s visit should be seen as an unequivocal statement that America stands with Taiwan, our democratic partner, as it defends itself and its freedom.”

Source: DailyWire

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