The military yesterday said that withdrawing forces from six outlying Kinmen County islands will not compromise military protection or local public order.
"We are doing this (withdrawal) at the request of the Kinmen County Government, since it is planning to expand tourism there," said Major General Huang Suei-sheng (黃穗生), a Ministry of National Defense spokesman.
Huang said that a detailed plan for withdrawing the forces has not yet been made but that military deployments in Kinmen County will change, probably by shifting the focus from troops to missiles and anti-aircraft weapons.
Huang said that Kinmen County Commissioner Lee Chu-feng (李炷烽) has been asking the military to withdraw from the six islands since 2000, and his request was granted by Premier Yu Shyi-kun when Yu visited Kinmen in 2002.
Asked whether the withdrawal of the military will impact public order, Huang said that the percentage of minor crimes will definitely rise in the beginning but that local police will take over the military's current role in maintaining peace on the six islands.
According to the ministry, the six islands are Kinmen County's Dadan, Erdan, Tungding, Peiding, Shihyu and Menghuyu. They are currently guarded by marines when there are no civilians there.
General Staff Deputy Chief Tseng Chin-ling (曾金陵) told lawmakers during a legislative meeting on Monday that it is necessary to guard and protect all of Kinmen County, particularly the civilians.
"We are confident that we can still protect our soil with state-of-the-art weaponry, even though our men were withdrawn," Tseng said.
However, Tseng also said that the military will focus its forces on the county's major island, Kinmen.
"Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu are together when it comes to the network of national defense. However, Kinmen and Matsu somehow stand alone outside the network because they are geographically unique, and our weapons deployed in Taiwan are not able to back them up when there is a war," Tseng said.
"So we have to come up with separate plans for these two areas for potential warfare."
According to local Chinese-language media reports, military forces on the six offshore islands of Kinmen will be fully withdrawn and these six islands will be officially returned to the Kinmen County Government for tourism uses.
The story also said that the military will reassign some personnel to stations on four nearby islands -- Fuhsing, Houyu, Tsaoyu and Chienkungyu -- to strengthen the forces there.
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