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Timetable needed for missile talks: DPP
DO IT NOW:If both the Ma government and Beijing want to
talk about removing the Chinese missile threat, they should be willing to talk
dates, DPP lawmakers said
By Vincent Y. Chao / Staff Reporter
Any calls on Beijing to dismantle the more than 1,500 missiles aimed at Taiwan
must include a timetable, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said
yesterday, one day after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) raised the issue in his
Double Ten National Day address.
The issue of removing the missiles was revived last month, when Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) briefly discussed the matter with Chinese-language reporters in
New York.
DPP lawmakers said Beijing and Taiwan needed to make their positions very clear.
“[Wen] said the missiles will eventually be removed. [Ma] says it should be
carried out quickly,” DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said, adding that
neither side “tells us anything about the foreseeable future.”
Referring to recent comments by government officials that cross-strait relations
“were at an all-time high,” Huang said Ma should use the opportunity to “give us
a timetable or tell [us] what conditions are necessary … for the missiles to be
removed.”
The Ministry of National Defense and military experts estimate that between
1,500 and 2,000 Chinese missiles are aimed at Taiwan, a number that has grown
steadily in the past decade. They include short-range ballistic missiles as well
as cruise missiles.
In his speech on Sunday, Ma said he hoped Beijing would remove the missiles as
soon as possible.
“The mainland authorities have recently mentioned the possibility of removing
missiles. We think it bears a positive significance for cross-strait ties,” Ma
said.
Elaborating on Ma’s remarks in the legislature yesterday, Premier Wu Den-yih
(吳敦義) said the government believed the best time for China to remove the
missiles was “immediately.”
However, the government has not asked the Mainland Affairs Council to begin
negotiations on the matter with Beijing, he said.
Questioned by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers, Wu said there were many
channels — such as “public speeches and other opportunities” — to let China know
that removing the missiles would “aid the peaceful development of cross-strait
relations and better suit everybody’s expectations.”
However, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said that if the two governments
really shared the same position, they should actively work to remove the
missiles.
“We hope that [if they] really want to disarm the missiles, they can do it with
haste,” she said.
DPP spokesperson Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) said in a statement that the president’s
comments “wouldn’t succeed in reducing China’s military threat” to Taiwan, while
Ma’s address was “full of slogans and saliva.”
A greater issue, he said, was whether Beijing was willing to renounce the use of
force against Taiwan.
"Chinese [officials] concede that most of their military buildup is aimed at
Taiwan. Our own defense [officials] have also publicly said that ... China’s
threat to Taiwan continues to rise," Lin said. "Ma should start thinking of more
concrete measures to protect this country’s security."
Critics and pundits have said that Wen’s comments might have been aimed at
boosting the KMT election chances in next month special municipality elections.
DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) recently said Wen’s remarks were
“meaningless” because the missiles could quickly be redeployed.
Military experts have said nothing short of a full removal of the complete
missile infrastructure, including launchers, depots and so on, was acceptable.
In March, US Admiral Robert Willard, the top commander of US forces in the
Pacific, said the latest addition to China’s missile threat against Taiwan
involved the transfer of up to eight battalions of surface-to-air missiles into
a military airport in Fujian Province.
In 1995 and again in 1996, China fired missiles into Taiwan’s surrounding
waters, a move ostensibly meant to deter voters from voting for then-president
Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) ahead of the 1996 presidential election.
The attempt backfired, with angry voters handing Lee an overwhelming victory.
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