Recently, some US arms manufacturers have publicly promoted their weapons sales to Taiwan. The long-range, early-warning radar systems and anti-submarine aircraft they are offering are relatively expensive and have been criticized by the military and the opposition. They mostly blame Washington's overbearing attitude and the DPP's political tactic of "using the US to accomplish Taiwan's indepen-dence" for allowing US arms dealers to raise their prices. Is the problem really that simple?
In fact, the US is supposed to be nervous about the future of the proposed arms sales. Today, the pan-green camp controls fewer than half of the legislative seats, and the pan-blue camp is strong enough to boycott any military budget. The opposition of at least some blue-camp legislators to the arms purchases is already known to everybody. Moreover, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) may lose the presidential election next year and these purchases may then be cancelled.
If the US really wants to force Taiwan to make such costly purchases by taking advantage of the DPP's pro-US stance, it should get the deals finalized while the DPP is still in power -- so as not to save a little only to lose a lot. But the US attitude still appears to be tough. Why?
The first reason is that through its decades-long security cooperation with Taipei, Washington fully understands that the defense policies of the Republic of China are made by the military itself, not the civilian government leaders -- not even under KMT rule when the party, the government and the military were viewed as one.
Basically, all the KMT's high-ranking civilian leaders were unable to make or dominate defense policy. Late president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) was able to dominate the military because other civilian officials inside the KMT were unfamiliar with defense affairs and were unable to advise him within the regular system. But maybe he was only interested in, and had a bet-ter understanding of, high-level military personnel.
It's seems difficult to change this quickly. Even if a power transition takes place next year, both our defense policies and arms purchases will still be proposed by the military.
Although the professionalism of defense policies can be fully ensured with the military taking responsibility for making these policies by itself, some problems may also occur. For example, from the users' point of view, we certainly hope that the weapons in our hands are technically mature, complete and reliable. It would be even better if they were all proven effective in actual warfare. As a result, it's surely predictable that Taiwan's self-made weapons are unfavorable. We will naturally face worse purchase conditions under such circumstances.
As for US-made weapons, apart from their excellent capabilities, they have dominated the world through US hegemony and have become the nation's first choice. So the relatively high prices seem inevitable. Mean-while, since Taiwan's military is not affected by any power transition, the US does not have to worry that new leaders may cancel arms deals after they come to power -- as other foreign leaders often do.
In this situation, not only have the divergent opinions on defense policies between the ruling and opposition camps failed to force Washington to make a concession on the arms deals, they have also become the source of internal conflicts.
The second reason is that the US does not really believe in the seriousness of Taiwan's military budget cuts in recent years. According to my personal experience, most US officials are sur-prised that the retirement pensions for veterans are taking a large portion of our military budget. To be fair, the average "income-replacement ratio" (the ratio of one's pension income to his or her working income) of our retired servicepeople is much higher than that of their counterparts in the US.
Hence, the US may doubt Tai-wan's pretence of having no money, and be suspicious of our determination to safeguard the nation since it is unaware of our culture and the real situation.
In addition, the mobilization of the nation's reserve forces only include retired conscripts rather than retired volunteers. Taiwan's military mobilization is only half that of Israel and South Korea. Plus, our reserve units are maintained and led by officers on active duty, not reserve officers, in peacetime. Thus, the military is maintaining more costly manpower than it should in peacetime.
This can hardly be solved by downsizing the current military units under the Armed Forces Refining Program, implemented from 1997 to 2001, or the future downsizing project.
In fact, although a large num-ber of military units have already been streamlined under the refining program, the military's personnel costs are still high. This is more or less related to Taiwan's mobilization system.
If the US believes that there is still room for improving both the effectiveness and expenditures of Taiwan's military budget, the nation will have fewer bargaining chips when negotiating with Washington for reasonable arms prices. This is a key issue in the nation's expensive weapons purchases that people seldom notice, and it's also the key problem that we must deal with.
Bill Chang is a former deputy director of the DPP's Chinese Affairs Department.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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