Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday urged people to put aside political disputes and pay more attention to what is being said by the international community about China's military situation.
Lu was referring to a detailed US study of China's military situation published on July 12.
"This report is the result of long-term study and observation and says that the expectation that China is seriously trying to resolve the cross-strait problem is a fraud," she said.
"They [the US government] suspect the sincerity of the Chinese in resolving this problem because of increased expenditure on armaments that reach US$65 billion, in addition to threatening Taiwan through political, financial and cultural channels," Lu said.
The vice president also warned that the US report indicates that China is running out of patience. In addition to increasing missile concentrations on its southeast coast to a total of 800 missiles, the report asserts Beijing also plans to use groups within Taiwan and Taiwan's lack of a clear identity to conduct war through economic, cultural and informational channels. The report says the goal is to decapitate Taiwan's decision-making mechanisms and to paralyze its markets to obtain "total victory."
Lu went on to point out that Taiwan continues to bring money, talent and technological secrets to China -- goodwill gestures that are only met with continued hostility from China.
"According to media reports, this is a phenomenon that Americans friendly to Taiwan cannot understand are feel unsatisfied with," she said.
During a speech to the International Young Businessmen's Taiwan Northern District Annual General Meeting yesterday in Yingko, Taipei County, she emphasized to the audience that they must heed international opinion and be concerned about Taiwan's security issues.
She emphasized the need to be clear about who is a friend and who is and enemy and told the group not to trust the facade of goodwill that China is showing Taiwan.
"Taiwan has too many feuds brought on by the excessive number of elections, and the media is more interested in political gossip that national security issues," Lu said.
"This report, which should be the concern of every Taiwanese, has hardly been noticed, and so even though our enemy stands before us, we need Americans to warn us of the danger," Lu said.
The vice president went on to point to the failure of the "one country, two systems" model as it operates in Hong Kong. She said that in the five years since the territory was returned to China, Hong Kong has suffered a weakened economy, rising unemployment and rising crime.
"When `one country, two systems' was first introduced, 30 percent of Hong Kong people felt themselves to be Chinese," Lu said. "Now, five years later, the figure has fallen to 22 percent. These figures deserve serious thought."
Lu added that Taiwanese should be more self-confident. She said they should be confident in the nation's future and shouldn't put Taiwan down.
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