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Beijing now thinks time on its side, a new report says

Beijing has concluded that the current rush by Taiwan businessmen to invest in the mainland could be the first step in the eventual unification of the island with China, and thus has adopted a "patient" attitude toward the use of force against Taiwan, a prominent US centrist international organization has reported.

The Atlantic Council, a Washington-based policy organization made up of traditionally mainstream US foreign policy experts, published its findings Wednesday in a report on a trip to Beijing and Taipei in January by its committee concerned with security issues.

Among other findings, the report warned against "provocative" actions by Taiwan toward a declaration of independence, and urged Taiwan to complete the "nationalization" of its armed forces to break its ties with the KMT and to develop more a professional military.

While the report was confident that the US would come to the military aid of Taiwan in case of Chinese attack, it cast doubt on whether that assistance would be assured if Taiwan unilaterally declared independence.

The delegation met with scores of government officials and unofficial sources during its week-long fact-finding China tour. It was made up mainly of former US military and diplomatic officials, and US aerospace executives.

The report stands in contrast to recent reports by the Pentagon and the Congressionally-appointed US-China Security Review Commission that warned of China's almost inevitable military threat to Taiwan.

"The PRC leaders appear prepared to be relatively patient," the council report said. "The likelihood that the PRC would force the [cross-strait] issue to a confrontation by, for example, setting a deadline, seems much lower than even two years ago [when the council took a similar trip]."

"If, as seems likely, the PRC leadership has high confidence in its ability to produce continuing economic growth without compromising its power position, it may well conclude that Taiwan will eventually accept that some form of unification is inevitable, if only on economic grounds.

"In other words, the general mood in Beijing has shifted from believing that time was on the side of Taiwan, to believing that times is on their own side, and that the current flow of Taiwan business people to the coastal parts of the PRC is only the beginning of what will become a flood of economic activity leading to functional integration."

Among the major shortcomings of Taiwan's armed forces cited by the report are the need for Taiwan to reform its military structure, to establish better civilian control and to work on joint-services operations.

The military should be "divorced from its past KMT links" and be subject to legally-based democratic control, the report said.

"Many of Taiwan's military officers are candid in acknowledging serious deficiencies in training, operational capabilities and jointness," the report says.

"In some areas, notably diesel submarines, they appear not to have thoroughly thought through the strategic, doctrine, requirements, personnel and resource issues raised by proposals that they acquire expensive new weapons systems from the United States."

Future US arms sales to Taiwan should be based on "the level of the PRC threat and the capability of Taiwan's military to utilize the weapons being provided," the authors suggest.

Future arms sales should be "evaluated by the United States in terms of contribution to Taiwan's ability [in terms of strategy, doctrine, personnel, training, C3I, and resources] to use the weapons to meet a plausible threat, rather than for their symbolic value," the Council said.

Nevertheless, the report urged the continuation of "extensive and substantive" military exchanges between Washington and Taipei.

It also urged against any Washington visit by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), which would not produce benefits and would exacerbate cross-strait tensions.
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