Legislator changes tack on arms bill

`RATIONAL DEBATE': A People First Party legislator who had long been against the special arms budget now said he would like to talk about it in the Defense Committee

By Ko Shu-ling

STAFF REPORTER

The stymied special arms procurement budget bill saw new hope yesterday when a long-time opponent advocated its passage through the legislature's Procedure Committee, where the package has been blocked 26 times.

"It does not make much sense to keep boycotting the arms procurement plan at the Procedure Committee, because if we continue to do that, we will be criticized as an irrational party," said People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lin Yu-fang, who is a member of the legislature's National Defense Committee. "I'm in favor of letting it proceed to the National Defense Committee for a rational debate, and I'm sure that it will turn out the way we want, taking into account the numerical advantage we enjoy in the legislature."

Lin said that other lawmakers also shared his thinking. He, however, opposed screening the special arms budget bill during a special legislative session, as proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus.

Lin's change of heart comes after the release of the US Department of Defense's annual report to Congress on the Chinese military, which clearly points out that the special arms procurement budget bill are still awaiting approval from the Legislative Yuan.

Pointing out what he called "mistakes" in the report, Lin called on the public to refrain from panicking and to take the report with a grain of salt.

While an appendix in the report says that Taiwan has 25 infantry brigades, Lin said that the actual number is far less, without specifying the exact figure (according to the data supplied by Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense [MND] in its 2004 National Defense Report, the army has 25 combined arms brigades).

Lin said the report also says that Taiwan has one marine division but that the correct number should be three brigades (in fact, page 43 of the report says Taiwan has one marine division divided into three marine brigades), and the correct number of destroyers should be one, instead of the six listed in the report (the MND report says Taiwan has seven Wu Chin III-class destroyers, also called Gearing-class destroyers).

"If the information about us is false, I doubt the information they obtain about China is correct," he said. "I don't think the data provided in the report is convincing enough to support their argument."

Lin also said that China did not deploy many new weapon systems over the past few years, and that the DF-31 and DF-31A ballistic missiles are still in the developmental process and have not yet entered mass production, let alone been deployed. He did not give a source for his information.

While China's growing military might is limited, Lin said, the US, on the other hand, has been "aggressively" beefing up its military deployments in East Asia, including Hawaii, Guam and Japan.

The reason that the US government made public the military report is simple, Lin said.

"They need to depict China as a `new demon' to replace the `old demon' of the Soviet Union to justify their high military budget," Lin said. "The report is also aimed at pressuring us to purchase the three military weapons systems they want us to buy from them."

By law, the US Congress requires the Pentagon to submit a report on the Chinese military each year.

Lin also called on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman-elect Ma Ying-jeou to mend fences with his defeated election rival, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, and form a taskforce to jointly tackle the arms procurement plan.

If its long-time ally is not united, Lin said that his party will not know who to work with.

Lin also called on Ma to to improve his relationship with his party and PFP Chairman James Soong. Since the KMT and PFP share a similar support base, Lin called on Soong to give up on President Chen Shui-bian and cooperate with the KMT and independent lawmakers.

Meanwhile, Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Douglas Paal yesterday visited Wang to express his concern over the long-delayed arms budget.

 

 

China lodges protest with US over report

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , BEIJING

China's Foreign Ministry called in a senior US diplomat in Beijing on Wednesday to denounce a Pentagon report on China's military strength. The US report, released Tuesday, was "groundless" and based on "reckless accusations," the vice foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, told David Sedney, the deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Beijing.

"This report ignores the facts and tries its utmost to spread the notion of a China threat," the state-run New China News Agency quoted Yang as saying. "It's a crude meddling in Chinese internal affairs, and it tries to sow discord between China and other countries."

Sedney was representing the ambassador, Clark Randt, who was away from Beijing on official business, a spokeswoman at the US Embassy said.

The annual Department of Defense report on China's military muscle said the nation's real military spending may be two to three times higher than the officially reported figure, which China said was US$26 billion last year.

The report "clearly points up the reason that the president and the United States government have been urging the EU to not lift the arms embargo on the People's Republic of China," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.

The Pentagon report also said that China's growing military reach might threaten the regional military balance and that China's military modernization was "focused on preventing Taiwan['s] independence or trying to compel Taiwan to negotiate a settlement on Beijing's terms."

China does not yet have the ability to occupy Taiwan, the report said.

The US' military budget is 17.8 times the size of China's, said Yang, who previously served as China's ambassador in Washington. He contended that the report exaggerated China's military strength "in order to find an excuse to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan."

But he added that China has the right to "renew some armaments" in order to protect itself.

 

 

DPP lawmaker defends family's China vacation

HOT HOLIDAY: Faced with criticism from fellow party members, Lee Wen-chung told reporters that he does not understand what all the fuss is about

By Jewel Huang

STAFF REPORTER

"President Chen said the other day that he hoped to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao, yet he wants to block DPP lawmakers from going to China."－by Lee Wen-chung, DPP lawmaker

Despite President Chen Shui-bian's warning to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members not to visit China, DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung took his family off for a holiday in China on Wednesday, triggering criticism from other party members. The trip by Lee was seen as especially sensitive since he is the convener of the legislature's National Defense Committee.

DPP caucus whip Lai Ching-te said yesterday that he was surprised by Lee's trip since the DPP caucus had agreed in May that party lawmakers should avoid going to China in the wake of Beijing's "Anti-Secession" Law.

In response to phone calls from Taiwanese reporters, Lee said yesterday that his trip was simply a vacation.

He said that he did not understand what was wrong with DPP legislators vacationing in China, pointing out about 3 million Taiwanese take sightseeing trips there each year.

"I don't really know what the big deal is about DPP legislators traveling to China," he said.

"It is not likely that I would leak any secrets," he said.

Lee said that he had agreed that politicians should avoid visiting China just after Beijing passed the Anti-Secession Law.

But now is not a sensitive time, he said, adding that there is no law barring legislators from going to China.

"President Chen said the other day that he hoped to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao, yet he wants to block DPP lawmakers from going to China," Lee said.

"DPP lawmakers shouldn't be afraid to go to China just because the president said they shouldn't," he said.

"The DPP can't have double standards and prohibit its legislators from visiting China. The DPP can't be a party that is not democratic," Lee said.

DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang said yesterday that the DPP does not bar its lawmakers from ma king personal trips to China, although it has banned them from going there as a legislative group.

"Lee was supposed to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of such a trip," Cheng said.

"To be frank, in terms of the current political atmosphere, it is inappropriate for party lawmakers to visit China, since they might be exploited as tools of Beijing's `unification war,'" Cheng said.

Lee's family arrived in Guilin, Guangxi Province, on Wednesday and will return to Taipei next Thursday.

 

 

KMT official says peace through talks better than defense

CNA , TAIPEI

A spokesman for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday that Taiwan should upgrade its defensive capability, but the more important thing is to achieve peace through cross-strait negotiations.

Chang Jung-kung said the estimated 650 to 730 ballistic missiles that China has targeting Taiwan is a cheap way to project a military threat, and even if Taiwan spends a large amount on military hardware, it will never keep up with China's threat, militarily or economically.

He said that Taiwan will be bogged down if it engages in an arms race with China, adding that the nation should upgrade its defensive capability, but that pursuing peace through other means is more important.

He also said that the KMT knows about the importance of military procurement, but the Democratic Progressive Party has failed to explain why an arms procurement deal from the US had ballooned to NT$610.8 (US$15.47) billion from the original NT$280 billion when it presented a special budget bill to the legislature in June last year.

Chang said that the KMT's attitude has always been "we want arms procurement, but the price must be cut."

 

 

Pentagon report takes no prisoners

By Richard Halloran

China and the US fought a verbal skirmish last week over the possible use of nuclear weapons against each other, underscoring the often precarious relations between Beijing and Washington.

China fired the first salvo, a belligerent statement by Major General Zhu Chenghu to foreign correspondents. Zhu said China would aim nuclear weapons at American cities if US forces intervened in a Chinese assault to prevent Taiwan from turning its de facto separation from China into formal independence.

The US response was subtle but unmistakable at the very end of a Pentagon report on China's military power. It warned that China should avoid a conflict over Taiwan involving the US as that "would give rise to a long-term hostile relationship between the two nations -- a result that would not be in China's interests."

In the briefing arranged by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Zhu said: "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons."

"Position-guided ammunition" looks like a bad translation. The general probably meant "precision-guided munitions," sometimes called "smart bombs."

"If the Americans are determined to interfere, then we will be determined to respond," Zhu said. "We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian."

"Of course," he asserted, "the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."

The general said this was his personal view. The foreign ministry reinforced that just after he spoke, suggesting a scripted ploy. No serving officer in China makes policy statements without clearance from the top.

That led to speculation about what the Chinese were up to. Zhu, aware that the Pentagon was about to issue a report critical of China's military buildup, may have mounted a preemptive strike. As he acknowledged, China lacks the forces to take on the US with conventional weapons and thus might resort to nuclear arms.

Clearly, however, this was not a new threat. Ten years ago, Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai, then a senior officer on the general staff, issued a similar warning. In the meantime, many Chinese have said the US would not put a US city at nuclear risk in a conflict over Taiwan and would not fight to defend the island.

A former commander of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair, told the Washington Post: "They think it's good to have a mad dog in your closet who might scare your potential adversaries."

Blair and other senior US officers have personally but privately cautioned Chinese leaders in recent years not to miscalculate US capabilities and intentions.

Whatever Zhu's motives, the US government took his threat seriously. A State Department spokesman called his remarks "highly irresponsible."

The Pentagon's report on Chinese military power was in preparation long before Zhu issued the nuclear warning. Nonetheless, it noted that China has deployed or is in final development of ballistic missiles that could hit anywhere in the US and addressed the issues raised by the general, in the context of China's threat to Taiwan.

The report said that China "does not yet possess the military capability to accomplish with confidence its political objectives on the island, particularly when confronted with outside intervention," meaning the US.

Further, a war "could severely retard economic development," the report said, adding that international sanctions against Beijing, either by individual states or by groups of states, could severely damage Beijing's economic development.

"China has claimed spectacular economic growth rates of 7 to 10 percent in recent years," it said.

Politically, a war over Taiwan could "lead to instability on the mainland," it said.

The report noted that a record 58,000 domestic protests, many of them violent, erupted in China last year. A failure in an attack on Taiwan, the report said, "would almost certainly result in severe repercussions" for leaders who had advocated military action.

The Pentagon's final caution: "Beijing must calculate the probability of US intervention in any conflict in the Taiwan Strait."

Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.