Military will defend Taiwan, MND says

Vice Minister of National Defense Huo Shou-yeh (霍守業) yesterday said the military will fight to defend Taiwan regardless of what the cause of an invasion might be.

Huo made the remark when asked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) "will the military fight for Taiwan's independence" yesterday at the legislature.

In the past, the ministry said the military would protect the Republic of China (ROC) and would fight for its survival. Yesterday was the first time it said the military would fight to protect Taiwan.

Ting told Huo that, according a report on Taiwan's security published by the RAND Corp, the increase of independence-related divisions in Taiwan in recent years has been taken into consideration by China in its military policy toward Taiwan. Ting then asked how the ministry would deal with the political divisions in Taiwan, and whether the military would fight for the country if a war was caused by Taiwan's independence movement.

"The issues regarding Taiwan's independence are internal political issues which should be resolved politically, and the military should be neutral. However, the military is responsible for defending against external military threats, and it will fight any invasion of Taiwan, regardless of what the cause for the invasion is," Huo said.

Meanwhile, Huo yesterday announced that the Han Kuang No. 21 computer war games will take place next week, and that Chief of the General Staff Admiral Li Tien-yu (李天羽) is leading the preparations for the exercise at the Hengshan command center.

Asked by several legislators to comment on recent military exchanges between Taiwan and the US or Japan, Hou said the military welcomed the announcement by the US and Japan that the Taiwan Strait was a common security concern, and also that he would like to see the two countries' intervene in the Taiwan Strait should any military crisis occur.

But although a Chinese-language newspaper said yesterday that Dennis Blair, a former commander of the US' Pacific Command, would lead the US delegation to observe the exercises in Taipei, Hou declined to comment on who will lead the US team and how many US personnel will be in Taipei.

He said the US had provided its evaluation of last year's computer war games, and the military has addressed the shortcomings the US had identified, particularly regarding the military's joint operations capabilities.

Chinese-language newspapers have said the nation's military is preparing to conduct joint computer war games with the US and Japan, and that the military will link up with the US military's Pacific headquarters in Hawaii for the first time.