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Taiwan to cut 9,200 troops amid warm
ties with PRC
Staff Writer with AFP and CNA
A Ministry of National Defense official yesterday said Taiwan planned to slash
the number of its troops by 9,200 this year amid warming ties with China, adding
that the cut would be offset by more advanced weaponry.
The reduction is part of a five-year plan aimed at trimming the size of Taiwan’s
armed forces by 60,000, or more than 20 percent from the present level of
275,000 troops.
However, the ministry said Taiwan’s defensive capabilities would not be
undermined as it seeks more high-tech and powerful weapons.
“The era of maintaining huge numbers of armed forces has gone. Defense
capability is no longer determined by the number of troops,” a ministry
spokesman said.
The news came in the wake of reports last week that China’s official military
budget was set to rise about 13 percent to 601.1 billion yuan (US$91.7 billion).
China’s buildup is widely seen by analysts as directed in large part at Taiwan.
Despite easing tensions with China, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has said Taiwan
needs to maintain sufficient forces for self-defense while pressing for dialogue
with Beijing.
In January last year, the US government announced it had notified Congress of a
weapons package for Taiwan that included Patriot missiles, Black Hawk
helicopters and equipment to modernize Taiwan’s ageing F-16A/B fleet.
The Ma administration also continues to pressure Washington to sell it more
advanced F-16C/D aircraft.
Legislators have expressed concern over the nation’s decreasing military budget,
saying it paled in comparison with China’s boost to military spending and was
insufficient to meet the country’s security needs.
During his presidential election campaign in 2008, Ma pledged that Taiwan would
complete the implementation of an all-volunteer military by 2014 and that the
military budget would be equal to at least 3 percent of GDP.
However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) said
at a legislative hearing that the ministry had failed to meet the 3 percent
target and expressed concern that the ongoing transformation to an all-volunteer
force would drive up personnel costs.
“That [personnel costs] will crowd out spending on logistics and military
procurement if there is no increase in our overall military budget,” Chang said.
Questions over the military budget’s adequacy were brought into focus in a
missile drill in the middle of January when fewer than 70 percent of the
missiles launched hit their targets.
At the time, lawmakers blamed the poor performance on a shortage of funding for
logistics and maintenance. The problem will persist if things do not change,
Chang said, because personnel costs will account for half of the country’s
military budget by 2014.
Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) acknowledged that funding
shortfalls had hurt maintenance, citing weapons systems purchased with a special
budget that did not receive enough subsequent funding for maintenance.
Chang said that if the ministry were not able to increase its budget, it would
have to adjust funding in each budget category, most likely requiring a dramatic
reduction in personnel costs. Doing that, however, would impede the president’s
all-volunteer military pledge.
The nation’s defense budget has fallen over the past three years, from US$10.4
billion in 2008 to US$9.6 billion in 2009 and US$9.3 billion last year.
The NT$297.2 billion (US$10 billion) budget for this year represents 2.2 percent
of the nation’s estimated GDP of NT$13.73 trillion.
Though the budget for this year has already been approved, KMT Legislator Shuai
Hua-min (帥化民), who is also co-convener of the Foreign and National Defense
Affairs Committee, said the ministry’s budget for next year would be rejected if
it was less than 3 percent of GDP.
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