The military will stage its major war games every other year instead of holding them annually, Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) said yesterday morning.
“Because the cycle of the live-fire Han Kuang Exercises is too short, making it difficult for the military to have adequate time to correct and adjust shortcomings found in each drill, we have decided to hold the series of drills every other year instead of annually,” Chen told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee.
Chen declined to say whether the decision had anything to do with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policy of engagement with China.
To strengthen the military’s combat readiness, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) stages drills each year. The Han Kuang war games are the most important of these exercises. This year’s Han Kuang Exercises wrapped up last month.
Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正), the deputy chief of General Staff for Operations and Planning, said the changes would take effect next year with computer war games, followed by live-fire war games in the first half of 2010.
Meanwhile, Chen yesterday said the titles of military attaches working in foreign countries without diplomatic relations would be reinstated starting Jan. 1.
“Our military attaches in foreign countries were not downgraded,” Chen said.
The minister made the remarks following a controversy earlier this month after a media report alleged that the ministry had removed military attache titles from officers stationed in the US because of external pressure.
Chen said the changes were made in September last year so that military personnel working in countries that do not have relations with Taiwan would not be a source of controversy.
Following the complaints, the ministry said it had taken up the matter with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and that the titles would be reinstated.
In response to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang’s (林郁方) proposal that military police be reinstated at Taiwan’s de facto Washington embassy Twin Oaks and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, Chen said the decision was up to MOFA, not the MND, and that the military would respect MOFA’s decision.
Additional reporting by Jimmy Chuang
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