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Taiwan’s Defense Ministry issued an urgent alert Tuesday about a Chinese satellite launched on a rocket over the island, an alarming message that disrupted the final days of campaigning before a major election and sparked accusations of a political ploy.
The alert was sent to mobile phones throughout the island of 23 million inhabitants, where presidential and legislative elections will be held on Saturday. In English, the initial alert warned of a missile flyby, an error quickly corrected by Taiwanese officials.
“It was a satellite, not a missile,” President Tsai Ing-wen said during a campaign stop in the southern city of Kaohsiung. “Don’t worry.”
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry issued a statement about an hour later, apologizing for the error. But by then, the warning had created an uncomfortable scenario for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.
In Taipei, the capital, Joseph Wu, the foreign minister, was addressing dozens of international journalists just before the warning. “We need to remain responsible, we need to remain moderate to prevent conflict between Taiwan and China,” he said.
Moments later, cellphones in the room buzzed and clinked, silencing questions with a message in English about a missile and in Mandarin about a rocket carrying a satellite.
Chinese state television broadcast video of the launch, one of many from a location well known to Taiwanese officials. But the text alert suggested that Beijing had stepped up its harassment of the island ahead of a particularly close Taiwanese election.
China has a long history of attacking Taiwan during major campaigns using threatening language, disinformation and other influence operations, seeking to alienate voters from the DPP, which Beijing sees as a party dedicated to Taiwanese independence.
In recent months, Chinese officials have framed the race as a choice between peace and war, suggesting that another DPP victory after eight years in power would intensify the risk of conflict. And in the run-up to the vote, Taiwan has already seen other flying objects: Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense reported several sightings of balloons floating from China toward Taiwan since last month, including a spike earlier this month.
But Tuesday’s alert seemed to carry a greater degree of concern. When China launched rockets carrying satellites on at least three occasions last year, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry issued statements, not public mobile phone alerts.
Government officials said Tuesday afternoon that the warning system had been designed to warn citizens about missile launches, and that it had only been used for the rocket carrying a satellite because it veered off course toward the skies. over the atmosphere of southern Taiwan. In the rush of the moment, officials said they did not double-check the translation before the emergency messages were sent. The officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the president’s office was not involved in making decisions about the alert.
However, just days before the election, the error created a stir among voters and rival parties.
The main opposition party, the National Party, Kuomintang or KMT, issued its own swift response.
“I think the Ministry of National Defense is trying to mislead the public by issuing such an alert,” said KMT Chairman Eric Chu.
Alexander Chieh-cheng Huang, an adviser to the opposition Nationalist Party and a professor at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, cursed when he saw the alert on his phone during an interview at a party-affiliated think tank.
“It’s all part of the campaign,” he said.
The PDP did not immediately respond to suggestions that this was a political tactic, but sought to distance itself from the move. Vincent Chao, spokesman for DPP presidential candidate William Lai Ching-te, said the Defense Ministry needed to respond and explain how the wrong translation occurred.
James Yifan Chen, an assistant professor of international relations at Tamkang University who advises KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih and studies Beijing’s military and security policies, said the alert might not have been justified even if the translation would have been correct. .
China launched dozens of satellites over the past year, he said, and about a quarter were on rockets that flew near Taiwan, usually south of the island or near Okinawa. He said he didn’t see anything special about the latest launch that would have justified the warning message.
“It was another regular mission of China to launch a satellite into space,” he said. “This time it was new only because the Ministry of Defense issued two warnings to the Taiwanese people.”
Amy Chang-Chien, Juan Liu and Chris Buckley contributed reports.