The 2002 defense White Paper, which was released on Tuesday, is both praiseworthy and condemnable, military analysts said yesterday. The analysts say the paper gives much more information than previous reports issued over the past 10 years, but must also be condemned for going beyond its limitations by touching on political issues.
Retired Lieutenant General Shuai Hua-ming (
"The worst part of the paper is the one about CBMs. The issue is beyond the control of the military. It is basically a political issue," Shuai said in a phone interview with the Taipei Times.
"The CBM issue was first brought up by the US during the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis. It has now become a sort of cliche. Everybody knows it is impossible to implement if the governments of the two sides cannot get into a state of rapprochement," he said.
"Under such circumstances, why does the Ministry of National Defense waste breath by talking in the defense White Paper about the goals it wants to achieve in different stages of the establishment of these CBMs?" he said.
Shuai, who ran the deputy chief of the general staff's operations office during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, said the military should realize that CBMs should follow political reconciliation between the two sides of the Strait. "It is not the responsibility of the military to speak on the issue," he said.
Andrew Yang (楊念祖), secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, agreed that it is unrealistic of the ministry to include the CBMs issue in the White Paper.
"The CBMs issue should be left to the politicians," Yang said. But, putting the CBMs issue aside, Yang said the 2002 defense White Paper is praiseworthy for providing much more information than the previous five papers. The ministry began issuing its biennial White Paper in 1992.
"The previous papers were characterized by vagueness and evasiveness. Such flaws are much less prevalent in the 2002 defense White Paper," Yang said.
"The greatest value of the new White Paper is that it provides a clear and comprehensive assessment of the strategic environment that Taiwan is situated in," he said.
Shuai, however, did not think the 2002 White Paper has any greater value than the previous papers.
"All these papers are nothing more than propaganda to me. If there is anything special about the 2002 paper, it would be that the MND has become more open-minded in the treatment of defense-related information," Shuai said.
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