Taiwan showed off its missile firepower on Tuesday, August 20, launching a battery of surface-to-air missiles in front of reporters during a visit to a sensitive test site on a remote part of the island's southeastern coast.
Democratically governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has complained of stepped up Chinese military activity as Beijing seeks to assert its sovereignty claims, and Taipei has been strengthening its deterrence abilities.
At the Jiupeng base in Taiwan's Pingtung County, the military test fired both US-made Patriot and Taiwan-made Sky Bow III missiles into the skies as dawn broke, while a warship off the coast fired a RIM-66 Standard missile.
Jiupeng is also where the government-run weapons developer National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology tests new missiles, like the longer-range version of the Hsiung Feng which is designed to hit targets deep in China.
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