The government yesterday condemned a group of retired military officers who signed a petition opposing its arms procurement budget, saying that they were encouraging a "defeatist" attitude, and had betrayed their oaths to safeguard the nation.
"These senior military officials all know the importance of Taiwan building up strong defense systems to counter China's threat, and many of them even participated in this arms procurement project under the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) authorities," Premier Yu Shyi-kun said.
"[The project that has become] the NT$610 billion special arms procurement budget was submitted in 1995, when many retired generals were government policy-making members," Yu said. "How could they adopt a completely different stance now, opposing the policies they made before?"
The package of weapons from the US includes eight diesel-powered submarines, 12 P-3C maritime patrol aircraft and six PAC-3 Patriot anti-missile batteries.
"If they are just ideologically opposed to the budget because of political concerns, then they are trying to endanger all 23 million Taiwanese people," he said. "And that is immoral."
Yu made his remarks when asked to comment on a signature drive conducted among retired military officials by the Democratic Advancement Alliance. The alliance, formed after the presidential election in March, previously made the news when it called for the nullification of the election "based on its investigation."
The alliance held a press conference to publicize its petition yesterday, saying that more than 150 retired military officers have pledged their support for the alliance's effort to quash the arms procurement budget.
The petition said that the deal between Taiwan and the US was overpriced, and that it would start an arms race.
China has more than 550 medium and short range ballistic missiles deployed within striking range of Taiwan, against which the nation has no effective defense.
"It is a wrong policy," alliance spokesman Hsieh Ta-ning (
Retired Major General Fu Ying-chuan (傅應川), who was the only military official present at the alliance's press conference yesterday, said that the weapons were too expensive and would be obsolete by the time they are delivered.
"It is impossible to advance our country's defense systems if we continue to depend on foreign countries' input," Fu said. "Yet the government would rather give money to foreign countries than allocate a budget to improve Taiwan's basic infrastructure and defense industry."
He said that peace can be achieved through political means, while an arms race will create cross-strait tensions.
The alliance said that a "big" protest and rally will be held tomorrow to appeal to the public to oppose the arms deal.
"Over 100 retired generals and the chairmen of three opposition parties will march to display our resolve," Hsieh said.
Yu said that the defense ministry estimates that China will possess the capability to defeat Taiwan by 2012. This assessment was made in accordance with a US report earlier this year, which warned that China has been expanding its military expenditure by US$50 billion to US$70 billion each year.
Many analysts believe that between 2006 and 2010, the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait will tilt towards China.
Yu said Taiwan loves peace, but cannot countenance appeasement. Yu said that World War II was partly the result of then UK prime minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, and people's memory of this tragedy should remain vivid.
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