China last month promoted at least four senior military officers with experience in planning for war over Taiwan ahead of a key political meeting next week at which the Chinese Communist Party has said it will adopt a new strategy to stop Taiwan moving toward independence.
In a move that was quietly handled even by the standards of China's secretive military, Beijing elevated General Chen Bingde (陳炳德) of the army to chief of the general staff, a post where he will exercise day-to-day operational command of the country's 2.3 million-strong armed forces.
As Chen was promoted through the senior ranks in the 1980s and 1990s, he held a series of command posts in the Nanjing Military Region opposite Taiwan, where China has concentrated its preparations for any conflict, official biographies and military analysts say.
Chen's previous post was director general of the general armaments department, where he led the rapid modernization of Chinese military hardware and the country's high profile space program.
Xu Qiliang (
The media reported last month that another senior air force officer with command experience in the Nanjing region, Ma Xiaotian (
In the earlier stages of a wider reshuffle of top posts through China's seven military regions, Admiral Wu Shengli (吳勝利) was appointed last year to head the navy.
Wu has also held key appointments that give him a solid grounding in naval operations in the Taiwan Strait.
Experts say these appointments are not designed specifically to threaten Taiwan but are part of China's overall military development where a top priority is enforcing it's claim of sovereignty over Taiwan if necessary.
"It sends a message more broadly that Beijing is enhancing its military capability to deal with Taiwan in any future conflict," said Andrew Yang (
"There is more emphasis on the quality of the commanders," Yang said.
The proportion of officers holding key command positions with first-hand experience in planning for a conflict over Taiwan has been increasing in recent years, experts say.
The promotion of senior officers with exposure to planning over Taiwan comes as President Hu Jintao (
Hu, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, has overseen recent military promotions and is quite likely to support further sharp increases in defense spending, analysts say.
Some experts on the Chinese military were puzzled over the manner in which Chen's promotion was first reported.
In a short item carried in the official military newspaper and other state media Sept. 21, Chen was described as the People's Liberation Army's chief of the general staff in a report about a meeting he held with the head of Uganda's armed forces.
There has been no official announcement of his promotion to replace General Liang Guanglie (
Party congresses usually dwell on domestic political issues and internal party business, including the maneuvering over selecting the next generation of leaders.
But senior government and party officials have said that delegates to this congress would fashion a new policy to deal with Taiwan.
China is angry about Taipei's plans to hold a referendum on whether Taiwan should join the UN under the name of Taiwan.
Most security analysts say China would be reluctant to take any action against Taiwan that could mar preparations for next year's Beijing Olympics.
But, they say, the Chinese leadership would be unlikely to allow Taiwan to make any move that would undermine China's aim of regaining control it.
A top adviser to the Chinese government on Taiwan issues warned that the referendum plan was the most serious threat to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, the Xinhua news agency reported on Oct. 3.
"The question of Taiwan involves China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," the Xinhua report quoted Yu Keli (余克禮), a Taiwan expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as saying. "This is one of China's core interests, and there is no room for compromise on this matter of principle."
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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