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AIT's Young repeats call for Taiwan to buy arms

American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Stephen Young yesterday holds up his tie to demonstrate that he supports the Boston Red Sox while joking that he regrets that Taiwan's baseball hero Wang Chien-ming plays for Boston's rivals, the New York Yankees. PHOTO: CNA

American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Stephen Young yesterday questioned the link between the Organic Law of the Central Election Commission (中央選舉委員會組織法) and the arms procurements budget, which has been blocked in the legislature more than 60 times.

Young, who had just returned from briefing US officials in Washington, held a press conference yesterday to address US concerns over the delayed bill for three military procurement items and other issues related to Taiwan's electoral and economic issues.

This was the second press conference Young has held to urge Taiwan to free up the military budget. Last October, Young made a similar call to the governing and opposition parties.

Young said that when questioned by officials at the White House and the Pentagon, he found that the most difficult question to answer was why Taiwan had not passed its military budget as quickly as possible.

"The latest explanation has centered around a controversy regarding the Central Election Commission [CEC], but over the past 14 months since I arrived here as director, it has been a series of domestic excuses for Taiwan's Legislative Yuan to explain away the inability to address this current problem," he said. "We believe that Taiwan is not responding appropriately to this steady buildup of the military across the Taiwan Strait. It seems to me that this is a fundamental security problem for Taiwan."

Young said he was saddened that the governing and opposition parties continued to shift the blame for the impasse.

"I think the legislature should put aside its partisan differences and act on the Patriot III system as it should also act on the P3C anti-submarine aircraft and the whole question of submarines," he said.

Meanwhile, quoting Dennis Wilder, the senior director for East Asian affairs at the National Security Council, Young said that Taiwan needed appropriate defense capabilities rather than offensive weapons.

"We think that offensive capabilities on either side of the Strait are destabilizing and therefore not in the interest of peace and security," Young quoted Wilder as saying.

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) agreed with Young on the arms bill and called on lawmakers to refrain from further tying up the budget, which was listed in this year's budget request, along with the CEC bill.

Tying the CEC bill to the budget bill set a very bad example in the legislature and the issue was likely to resurface, he said.

DPP legislative caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) disagreed with Young.

"The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) should bear the responsibility, as it is using the CEC bill to hold the budget bill hostage. Could the AIT possibly not be aware of this?" Ker said.

KMT Legislator Su Chi (蘇起) said that for the moment, "the most important thing [in the legislature] is the CEC bill and not the arms procurement budget."

Su said the KMT would never accept the non-passage of the CEC bill because the electoral body has long been tainted by partisanship.

People First Party Spokesman Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said that the stalling of the arms budget had nothing to do with the CEC bill because the party had not changed its opposition to the arms procurement package, which it says is needlessly expensive.

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