Ex-US diplomat rankles Taiwan with defense remarks
Former top US diplomat says Taiwan's defense spending leaves it vulnerable to Chinese attack
By | Associated Press – 3 hrs ago
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- The former top American diplomat in Taiwan
has said that the island's declining military budgets have left it
vulnerable to Chinese attack and made it easier for mainland spies to
penetrate its armed forces, remarks that the defense ministry on Monday called "not entirely objective."
The comments from William Stanton constituted an unusually hard-hitting critique of Taiwan's
national security posture, and stood in sharp contrast to repeated
assertions of American support for President Ma Ying-jeou's five-year
program of seeking to lower tensions with the mainland, from which
Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.
A career diplomat, Stanton served as the head of the de facto U.S.
embassy in Taiwan from August 2009 to August 2012. His remarks came in a
speech before a pro-independence organization in Taipei on Friday.
Responding to Stanton's charges, the defense ministry acknowledged that between 2003 and 2008 unspecified "political reasons" led to cuts in the duration of military service "which impacted negatively on the quality of military exercises and on force preparedness." It did not elaborate.
It also said it regretted that defense spending was unable to exceed 3 percent of GDP, but said that despite budgetary difficulties it had made "appropriate" expenditures on transitioning to an all-volunteer force and "meeting other major defense needs."
Since 1994, Taiwan's defense expenditures have steadily declined. In 2012, they constituted 2.2 percent of GDP, far below the 3 percent target Ma fixed when he came into office in 2008.
One of Stanton's sharpest
criticisms was reserved for a possible link between declining Taiwanese
military morale and the upsurge in Chinese espionage
penetrations of the Taiwanese armed forces. Citing press sources,
Stanton said there had been at least nine of these penetrations between
2004 and 2011, and that many had targeted "Taiwan's command and control
and communication systems and U.S. weapons systems sold to Taiwan."
"These cases have been harmful not only because of the potential loss
of unknown quantities of classified information, but also because their
success and frequency serves to undermine U.S. confidence in security
cooperation with Taiwan," Stanton said.
His charge constitutes what is believed to be the first public acknowledgement from a U.S. government official — serving or recently retired — that Chinese espionage against Taiwanese targets may be impacting America's willingness to provide security assistance to Taipei.
Responding to Stanton's charge,
the defense ministry said it had been zealous in pursuing cases of
Chinese espionage against the Taiwanese military, and that this zealousness proved its "credibility" in combating the Chinese spying threat.
"We will continue working on measures to safeguard our security," it said.
Under Ma's leadership, tensions between China and Taiwan
have receded to their lowest levels in more than 60 years, and the
possibility of war between the sides has been significantly reduced.
Stanton acknowledged that in his remarks, but said it was still vital that Taiwan take its national security needs seriously, not least because China has never disavowed its threat to use force to bring the island under its control.
"I firmly believe that sufficient self-defense forms the foundation
from which Taipei can most confidently manage relations with Beijing,"
he said.
Sheila Paskman, spokeswoman at the de facto U.S. representative office in Taipei, the American Institute on Taiwan, said that Stanton's "views are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of AIT or the Department of State."
end quote from:
http://news.yahoo.com/ex-us-diplomat-rankles-taiwan-134359453.html
I actually think Taiwan is being very pragmatic in regard to the present way wars will be fought in the future. When Chiang Kai-shek first established Taiwan during the 1940s armies were used. But now, big nations use missiles and flying drones. Because of this the U.S. wouldn't be able to protect Taiwan if it was attacked by China. Taiwan would just be gone in a few minutes. That's all. So, I think that Taiwan has seen the writing on the wall and realized that warfare with China is just suicidal for Taiwan. It is just modern day pragmatism to have this approach. Stanton likely is very sincere but possibly hasn't considered what today's warfare between China and Taiwan might actually look like. No troops would be involved at all. Taiwan would just cease to exist in minutes. This is just being pragmatic. Even if Taiwan gave as good as it got China would still exist and Taiwan would be gone.
No comments:
Post a Comment