Taipei: Taiwans Ministry of National Defence “will install a drone defense system next year” after a “humiliating” video showing Taiwanese soldiers throwing rocks at a hovering drone in Kinmen County emerged on Chinese social media, media reports said.
In the short video, apparently shot by a civilian drone on August 16 and recently posted on the Weibo microblogging website, two soldiers wearing masks were seen throwing rocks at a Chinese drone when it was flying above a Taiwanese military post, RFA reported.
The same drone also took a picture of two other soldiers staring at it from their watch room, one holding a camera. They looked both startled and curious, the report said.
The Kinmen Defence Command, which is responsible for the outlying islands of Kinmen, confirmed on Wednesday that the incident happened on Erdan, an islet 7 km from Kinmen island but under 6 km from the coast of China’s Xiamen island.
Kinmen is one of Taiwan’s far outlying islands, located much closer to China’s mainland than to Taiwan’s main island.
The photo and video went viral on Weibo and Chinese social media users didn’t waste time making fun of it.
One user, Zhao DaShuai, wrote on Twitter: “As you can see, the air defense in Taiwan was indeed active.”
“Taiwan’s most advanced surface-to-air weapon exposed,” another user chimed in.
Soon the drone’s visuals were picked up in Taiwan, with Taiwanese netizens calling it “humiliating” and “inexcusable”.
“Such a drone incident never happened before in Kinmen,” said Timothy Tsai, who was born on the island and heads a local military history group.
“It looks threatening to the island’s security,” Tsai said, adding that the military “should really look to strengthen the drone prevention and control” on outlying islands, RFA reported.
IANS