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Committee passes draft on four-year report on military

The legislature’s Diplomacy and National Defense Committee yesterday passed a draft requiring the Ministry of National Defense (MND) to submit a quadrennial defense review within 10 months of a new president taking office.

The Diplomacy and National Defense Committee yesterday approved a draft amendment to Article 31 of the National Defense Act (國防法) requiring the MND to provide the four-year review to the legislature, a document that will later be made public.

The current Article 31 stipulates that the MND must deliver an annual National Defense Report and a five-year military construction and military policy report to the legislature.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方), one of the legislators who proposed the draft, said at the committee meeting that the US Department of Defense had offered a Quadrennial Defense Review to the US congress since 1997, submitting it on three occasions since then.

Lin said that in the reviews, the US military details its short-term defense strategy in relation to the dynamic international situation and varying threats.

Lin also said that the proposal would help the MND better communicate on military affairs with new presidents.

Vice Minister of National Defense Lin Yu-bao (林於�?old the committee that the MND believed the quadrennial defense review should come in two versions.

One version would be released to the public, while the other would be classified, Lin Yu-bao said.

Lin Yu-fang, however, said that because the review does not contain real military deployment information, it did not need to be confidential.
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