The US-led coalition of three nations invading Iraq gives Taiwan a good lesson about the necessity and importance of an effective air defense system as a strategic deterrent, a retired lieutenant-general of the air force said yesterday.
"Like Iraq, Taiwan is weak in its missile defense. So far, the military has not acquired the capabilities to defend against China's missiles. This is our greatest worry," said retired Lieutenant-General Kao Chung-yuan (
"China learned a lot from the Gulf War in 1991. It has developed accordingly the doctrine of fighting a regional war under high-tech conditions. The doctrine focuses on the use of high-tech weapons such as guided missiles with Taiwan as the apparent target," Kao said in a telephone interview yesterday.
"China will use similar attack modes against Taiwan. In the first wave of attacks, China will launch missiles of various kinds against major infrastructure on the island, aiming to paralyze our command, control and communications capabilities," he said. Kao said that the military should consider developing offensive capabilities to deter China against taking any military action against the nation.
"Offense is the best defense. If we have strategic deterrents, we will force China to restrain itself. Such defense is much more useful than the development of anti-ballistic missile capabilities," he said.
An active military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, agreed that because it has nuclear weapons, China is not likely to become a target for attack by the US.
"The ongoing US strike on Iraq indicates that Iraq might not have weapons of mass destruction as alleged by the US. But North Korea and China are apparently in possession of such weapons," the officer said.
Supporters for strategic deterrents argue that offensive systems cost less. Their basis for comparison is the missile defense capabilities that the military has been developing for several years. Rough estimates by the military show that the money the military is to spend on developing missile-defense capabilities to counter's China ballistic missiles will be over nine times what China would spend. Skeptics of the theory highlight, however, the possibility of incurring preemptive strikes from China.
Regarless of which side is more persuasive, Taiwan is not likely to develop strategic weapons without an agreement with the US, a common understanding since the 1987 escape to the US of a key defense official in charge of a nuclear weapons development project and the year Japan and the US signed an "Agreement Concerning Japanese Participation in Research for the Strategic Defense Initiative."
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift