Sawt Falasteen - Taiwan lawmakers to remove legal hurdles for Starlink to operate

Taiwan faces the constant threat of an invasion by Beijing, which claims it is part of its territory and in recent years has ramped up military pressure on its tiny neighbour.

The self-ruled island, which has no low Earth orbit satellites of its own, relies on subsea telecoms cables to connect it to the rest of the world.

Its Chunghwa Telecom has struck deals with several foreign satellite companies, including European firm Eutelsat, to provide back-up telecommunications in case of war or natural disaster.

But Elon Musk's Starlink, which dominates the global satellite communications sector with thousands of satellites in orbit and operations in dozens of countries, is not among them.

Legal requirements for telecoms operators to have a Taiwanese chairperson and foreign ownership caps of 49 percent have deterred the firm from entering Taiwan's market, lawmakers told AFP.

To boost the resiliency of the island's phone and internet services, they want to amend the Telecommunications Management Act to allow a case-by-case review process that could exempt companies, such as Starlink, from these rules.

"To put it bluntly, if a cross-strait conflict were to break out and CCP (Beijing) cut all of Taiwan's submarine cables... Taiwan would have virtually no means of communicating with the outside world," said Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Huang Chien-hao.

"We've also seen in the recent wars, including the Iran-US war, the war between Ukraine and Russia, and during the initial unrest in Iran, much of the information the outside world received was transmitted through Starlink satellite," he said.

"That's why this is essential for national communications resilience."

- Diversified services -

The proposed changes have already been approved by a parliamentary committee, with the support of the opposition KMT and Taiwan People's Party -- which control parliament -- and President Lai Ching-te's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The amendments are expected to be passed by parliament after a third reading as early as Friday.

"Our goal is to have diversified satellite services," said KMT lawmaker Ko Ju-chun.

"Taiwan should be able to connect to any satellite constellation because Taiwan is a place that most needs sufficient internet connectivity in order to ensure our safety, communications security and national security."

Taiwanese authorities have already seen what happens when subsea cables are disconnected.

In February 2023, two telecoms lines serving Taiwan's outlying Matsu archipelago were severed, disrupting communications for weeks.

Taiwan has also learned lessons from Ukraine, where Starlink has been a vital communications tool for the country's forces fighting Russia's troops.

However, some in Taiwan are wary of relying too heavily on Starlink after Musk admitted blocking a Ukraine attack on Russian warships by turning off internet access to the system.

Musk's business ties with China and his previous comments that Taiwan should become part of China have also angered the island.

Huang said the government would need to strike agreements with Starlink to ensure its communications services continued operating "during disasters or emergencies".

"The purpose of these amendments is to equip the government with the tools to introduce greater communications backup capacity, provided that national security requirements are fully met," DPP lawmaker Lin Chun-hsien said.

- Other obstacles -

Even with the changes, however, it is unclear if Starlink will be interested in making its satellite service available to the island.

Cathy Fang, a policy analyst at the government-backed Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology, said telecom operators faced other barriers to entering Taiwan.

"Operators would still need to address spectrum access, ground infrastructure, terminal deployment, cybersecurity and data-governance requirements, market size, and commercial viability," Fang told AFP.

"The amendment would remove a major legal obstacle, but the final decision would remain a commercial judgment for SpaceX."

Digital Affairs Minister Lin Yi-jing said Monday that Starlink had previously indicated to the government that its interest in the Taiwan market was "not particularly high".

Taiwan's 4G and 5G population coverage already exceeded 99.9 percent so Starlink believes "there is limited commercial potential" in the market," Lin said.

Nevertheless, Chunghwa Telecom chairman Alex Chien said Tuesday that the Taiwanese company was open to becoming Starlink's "exclusive agent" or forming a joint venture.

"We're not ruling anything out. It depends on the other party," he said.

B.AbuZeid--SF-PST