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US military delegation holds talks

A delegation of US military officials is in Taipei and has held joint talks with senior Taiwanese military officials, the Taipei Times has learned. The talks are part of a series of high-level security discussions that Taiwan regularly has with the US regarding strategic and operational military matters.

The talks are being chaired on the US side by officials from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, and officials from the US Pacific Command are also present.

The director of the Ministry of National Defense's strategic planning department, Vice Admiral Liang Kung-kai (梁功凱), is heading the Taiwanese delegation.

A Taiwanese insider confirmed that the talks, which lasted about half of a day, had taken place earlier in the week. He said that the talks were strictly about existing military-cooperation programs, and that "political issues are avoided."

However, a defense source said that such military cooperation between the US and Taiwan, which occurs regularly, is an indication of the seriousness with which Washington views China's repeated threats to invade Taiwan.

Meanwhile, a former US military official said that the rationale for holding such talks was to "create a cross-flow of information" between the Taiwanese and US militaries.

Such discussions are held on three different levels, the former official said. The highest level talks are often referred to as the "Monterey talks" -- because they are generally held in Monterey, California -- and are conducted to address overall strategic issues facing Taiwan.

The Monterey talks are usually headed by a senior official from the Pentagon, such as an assistant secretary of defense or a deputy assistant secretary. To date, there have been about one dozen such meetings between high-level US and Taiwanese defense officials.

The Taiwanese source said that the timing of the discussions had little to do with the controversy surrounding the special arms procurement budget that the Cabinet has proposed.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the Democratic Progressive Party are pushing the legislature to hold an extraordinary session, and want to submit the NT$480 billion (US$15 billion) budget bill for the 27th time.

However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its allies have said they will only agree to a special session to discuss a proposed flood-control bill.

The Taiwanese source said that the fact that the talks occurred this week, when the debate over the special session comes to a head, was merely coincidental.

The talks, he said, "had been scheduled many months before."
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