Taiwan Sets Up Elite Unit to Protect President Amid China Invasion Fears

Asia Times

Security, Asia

Threats from Beijing and at home force the island to step up protection of Tsai and key state organs.

Taiwan has ratcheted up protection for President Tsai Ing-wen after China staged a military drill late last year that included a mock assault on a full-scale replica of Taiwan’s Presidential Palace.

The exercise, at a training base in Inner Mongolia in August, featured Chinese troops entering streets from the Bo’ai Special Zone in Taipei. News of the drill was revealed by Beijing’s state-owned China Central TV.

Given what appears like aggressive psychological warfare, it is hardly surprising that President Tsai’s security detail has been ramped up – with new recruits from the island’s special duty troops and the purchase of a brand-new bullet- and blast-proof Audi sedan last year.

A new security battalion commenced operation this week to guard the Bo’ai Special Zone in Taipei – a buffer zone in the capital where Tsai lives and works, which includes the Presidential Palace, Executive Yuan and Judicial Yuan, plus numerous departments and key ministries such as Foreign Affairs and National Defense.

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Tsai’s office is inside the Presidential Palace, while she normally lives in an official residence nearby also used by her predecessors.

Headed by a female lieutenant, the battalion is mainly tasked with anti-infiltration and “anti-decapitation” tasks. It also has to deal with any emergencies that may occur within the zone at a time when Tsai’s top advisers are increasingly jittery about the president’s security, as well as that of the nation, given the island’s travails with Beijing and Tsai’s tepid approval ratings at home.