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What is the KMT's real strategy for defense?

The fundamental tone of Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) political report at the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) 17th National Congress reveals his intent to skip over the issue of a referendum on Taiwan joining the UN and focus more on his Taiwan policies in the next five years.

The joint press communique issued by the CCP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in April 2005 as well as the peace agreement suggested by Hu are still based on the "one China" principle. Hu's references to a shared destiny, joint decisionmaking and a mutual framework for peace and stability are not based on equality, but rather in the idea of one stronger and one weaker party, and it cannot hide that the "Anti-Secession" Law authorizes military force.

With China and the US having access to both soft and hard powers, Taiwan must strengthen the modernization of its national defense rather than hope for a thaw in cross-strait relations if it is to rest easy.

The inability of the Taiwan government and opposition parties to find a way to pass the full arms procurement bill is making some in Washington doubt Taiwan's determination to defend itself.

In September 2005, then US deputy assistant secretary of defense Richard Lawless said that Taiwan could not rely on the US alone to stave off threats and that the Taiwan Relations Act stipulated that both Taiwan and the US had to fulfill their responsibilities by deterring invaders or other threats.

Edward Ross, principal director for Security Cooperation Operations of the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, was even more blunt, saying that Taiwan's procrastination on the special arms procurement bill meant that the US needed to reconsider the degree of intervention it was prepared to offer to help defend Taiwan.

In the same year, the US Senate's Committee on Armed Services chairman Senator John Warner and the Congressional Taiwan Caucus' co-chair, Representative Steve Chabot, said that many members of Congress were re-evaluating their support for defending Taiwan.

Although political considerations lay behind US President George W. Bush's decision not to approve the sale of F-16 C/D fighter aircraft that Taiwan wanted, it was also connected to Taiwan's inability to pass part of the arms procurement budget.

The KMT's white paper on national defense was a declaration of its an intent to make Taiwan "solid as a rock," but it was restricted to defensive strategies and showed no intent to develop effective weapons systems capable of resisting China.

The number of times the KMT and the People First Party have voted down the special arms procurement bill in the legislature is quite impressive. The KMT wants defense policy to be adjusted to reflect changes in cross-strait relations, and has publicly said that the arms procurement bill had to be reconsidered as a result of the mechanism for building mutual military trust mentioned in the communique between Hu and former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰).

Several public opinion polls show that KMT supporters take a more cautious view of the special arms procurement budget.

Although the KMT agreed to raise the defense budget to 3 percent of GDP, voters should look at the party's consistency over time and whether its actions coincide with what it says.

Other things to look for is whether the party will work actively to improve cross-strait relations or sacrifice Taiwan's defense security, perhaps even abandoning the research and development of counter-strike weapons.

Lin Cheng-yi is a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica.

Translated by Perry Svensson
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