China's top military official urged preparations to reunify Taiwan by force, while vowing to modernize the People's Liberation Army (PLA) into a powerful high-tech military organization, the country's state press said yesterday.
In a speech marking the 74th anniversary of the founding of the PLA, Defense Minister Chi Haotian (
PHOTO: REUTERS
"We will definitely not commit ourselves to the abandonment of force and we will never permit any external force to interfere in the affairs of Taiwan," Chi said at a Tuesday reception in Beijing.
"All schemes to hinder China's reunification are doomed to fail," he said.
Chi further urged the military to advance science and technology in an effort to modernize the PLA into a high-tech fighting force capable of accomplishing its "historic mission" of unification.
"The leapfrog development of defense-related science and technology, as well as weaponry, will also rely on the general progress of science and technology," he said.
Chi also indicated that the CCP's direct leadership over the army, as opposed to the government's leadership over the military as is the case in Western industrialized countries, would continue to be the basis of China's military command structure.
"The party's absolute leadership over the army is a fundamental guarantee for the army's steady growth and continual success," he said.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong China-backed newspaper, Wen Wei Po reported yesterday that the Chinese military will hold its "largest, most advanced" war games ever on an island opposite Taiwan soon.
The pro-Beijing newspaper said tens of thousands of troops had been training during the past three months on Dongshan island, off the southeastern coastal province of Fujian.
Top military leaders would preside over comprehensive joint military exercises there "in the near future," it said.
"The military drill will be the Peoples' Liberation Army's largest and the most technologically advanced exercise," the report said.
In late July, China's air force conducted exercises near the island while Fujian-based fleets conducted combat drills.
Land-to-air missiles were also being tested in Fuzhou, Wen Wei Po said.
The front-page report showed a high-ranking officer standing inside a model, apparently of the area near Dongshan, with dozens of military vessels aligned in battle positions.
China's military does not comment on its activities.
A Taiwan Defense Ministry spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said China routinely holds exercises during the summer.
The reported drills appear to be routine and not threatening to Taiwan, the spokesman said.
Taiwan was the first to warn about the Chinese war games two months ago.
Despite China's bellicose rhetoric, Western experts believe it would be at least a decade before China's armed forces will catch up with Taiwan in terms of technology.
Even then, China will still probably lack the crucial transportation or "sealift" capacity, to ferry the enormous number of men a successful invasion would require -- estimated at up to 750,000 -- across the 130km-wide Taiwan Strait.
China's maneuvers are regarded more as a scare tactic than evidence of a serious military threat.
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