There are three security goals that president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) must pursue after taking office on May 20 to bolster the nation’s armed forces, strengthen the security of Taiwan and enhance relations with the US.
First, increase the defense budget.
In her campaign speeches and policy statements, Tsai advocated increasing the defense budget to 3 percent of GDP. Taiwan looks to the US as its ultimate pillar of defense. Many in Washington do not think that a military budget of US$10.7 billion per year is sufficient to meet Taiwan’s defense.
In addition, the primary pillar of Taiwan’s defense is the military, which feels that it has been largely overlooked and under-appreciated during the past eight years. As a result, its morale has plummeted.
Achieving an increase in the defense budget from the current level of approximately 2.2 percent of GDP would not be easy given a smaller national budget, pension obligations and the needs of an aging society. However, by putting more money into the defense budget, Taiwan would have come around to accepting Washington’s consistent urging to do so.
An increase in the defense budget does not necessarily mean the immediate acquisition of more weapons. A larger defense budget should initially be devoted to financing strategies to increase the recruitment and retention of military personnel in order to make the ill-conceived and poorly executed plan to create a volunteer force finally succeed.
Second, bolster the national defense industry.
Tsai has pledged to develop a more robust national defense industry, which she believes would help spark economic growth and industrial creativity. Local defense production would increase self-reliance given the reluctance of other countries to sell arms to Taiwan.
Even though the US is Taiwan’s ultimate pillar of defense, its Foreign Military Sales Program is a long, drawn out, complicated process. Increasingly, the US is hesitant to sell arms to Taiwan in order to protect its commercial interests and to maintain military to military communication with China. The spinoff effects of defense development can also be directed to civilian industrial development and job creation.
Third, counter Chinese intelligence collection operations.
Exploiting the low morale of Taiwan’s military, China has stepped up human intelligence operations in the hope of casting the force as an unreliable US defense partner. Indeed, during the past six years, there have been at least 33 cases of military personnel and others selling sensitive defense information to China.
For both the benefit of Taiwan’s military and US armed forces, if they should be called to help Taiwan, Tsai needs to ramp up counter-intelligence operations in the military and civil society. She needs to increase the frequency of polygraphing those in the military who have access to sensitive information, such as communication systems and contingency plans. Longer restrictions on the period that retired military personnel are barred from traveling to China need to be enacted.
With her solid majority in the legislature, Tsai needs to bring about the passage of legislation being promoted by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) that would cut off pensions to retired military personnel convicted of spying for China. Prison sentences for all those convicted of espionage need to be increased. Former vice admiral Ko Cheng-sheng (柯政盛) was only sentenced to 14 months in prison, while businessman Shen Ping-kang (沈秉康), who lured Ko into spying, received a sentence limited to 12 months.
In addition to human intelligence collection operations, Tsai needs to develop strategies to counter technical and industrial intelligence collection operations.
Taipei Times reporter William Lowther last year wrote: “According to the US cybersecurity firm Fire Eye, Taiwan was the third most targeted nation in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of attempts to steal data last year [2014]” (“Report warns over Chinese spying,”, Nov. 21, 2015, page 1).
Semiconductors are thought of as the bedrock of Taiwan’s information technology industry. Testifying before the legislature, National Security Bureau Director-General Yang Kuo-chiang (楊國強) underlined the threat to Taiwan of its semiconductor and other cutting edge high tech sectors of the economy coming under Chinese control. Tsai must also block the sale of such industries.
Accomplishing these three goals would make Taiwan’s armed forces a more modern, credible fighting force with enhanced morale and a national defense industry that enhances self-reliance and creates civilian job opportunities.
In addition, Washington’s concerns over the reliability and trustworthiness of the military would decrease and arms manufacturers would have no cause to be reluctant to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan.
William Sharp is a visiting scholar at Academia Sinica.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations