The military's failure to adjust to keep up with the US global military redeployment has undermined Taiwan's defense capabilities in the face of the Chinese threat of a "sudden attack," former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said yesterday.
He made the comments at a forum titled "The Transformation and Redeployment of the US Military and the Security Alliance in Asia" sponsored by Taiwan's National Security Institute and Japan's Asia Security Forum.
While the US is engaging in one of its most significant global military redeployments since the end of World War II and Japan is making fast and clear changes in tune with the US military repositioning, Taiwan is "in the dark" about the threats posed by the Chinese, Lee said.
A laggard military is not making an adequate effort to improve its defense capabilities, he said.
Lee said China has abandoned its previous "stick" approach of issuing rhetorical threats against Taiwan, and has begun using soft approaches, including economic "carrots" to make the Taiwanese lower their guard.
In light of China's booming economic power, which will culminate between 2008 and 2010 with the Beijing Olympic Games and the World Exposition in Shanghai, Lee said Beijing will not launch a large-scale invasion by openly mobilizing its troops.
Instead Beijing will opt for a stealthy "sudden strike" while Taiwan's guard is lowered, he said.
Drawing a lesson from the US' unpreparedness for Pearl Harbor, Lee urged Taiwan to stay alert at all times to the imminent Chinese threat.
"We must let our enemies know that we're alert at all times, so it will complicate the Chinese strategy to overwhelm Taiwan with a sudden attack," Lee said.
National Security Institute director Ng Chiau-tong (
Referring to the US Universal Jurisdiction Rejection Act of 2003, which designated Taiwan as a major non-NATO ally, Ng said that pushing for the US to deploy troops here was not a futile idea since Taiwan is practically an ally anyway.
Suzuki Masataka, a former Japanese lawmaker and defense official, gave a talk on the asymmetrical developments of political and economic cross-strait relations.
He urged Taiwan to take the growing Chinese military threat seriously. He also cautioned that Taiwan must not to let its defenses down in the face of economic enticements from China.
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