Listen
up, Taiwan generals: Reform or perish
By Mac William Bishop
TAIPEI - Taipei generals and reluctant, coddled young soldiers, listen up. And
don't discount an all-volunteer army.
China is upping the military ante, increasing its military spending and
reorganizing its armed forces in an effort to become East Asia's regional
military power - and quite possibly more than that. Beijing wants a modern,
streamlined military capable of projecting power to the far points of China's
compass and its military orbit. Most, if not all, of its military restructuring
and buildup is aimed at achieving one goal: forcing a solution - if necessary -
to the intractable Taiwan reunification question on terms favorable to Beijing.
It has never renounced the use of force.
On the other side of the Taiwan Strait, the island's boisterous, burgeoning
democracy is divided over how to respond to China's military threats and the
deployment of about 500 Dong Feng-11 and Dong Feng-15 ballistic missiles from
the 2nd Artillery Corps, China's strategic missile forces. Not enough people
voted on March 20 in the security referendum for it to be valid, but those who
did were clear that the don't like Chinese missiles aimed at the island and
they think Taiwan should acquire advance defense technology if Beijing doesn't
holster its guns.
Much of this debate is focused on what Taiwan's military must do to meet the
growing Chinese military threat. The United States, as the largest supplier of
military hardware and support to Taiwan, has also been drawn into this debate.
On Wednesday, China again threatened to take action if Taiwan moved toward
independence. The spokesman of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, Li Weiyi, said
that President Chen Shui-bian's promise to hold a national referendum on
drafting a new constitution by 2006 was tantamount to creating a timetable for
Taiwan's independence. According to Li, China would "maintain the motherland's
sovereignty and territorial integrity at all cost". That was widely interpreted
as a another military threat.
The comments were delivered as US Vice President Dick Cheney visited Beijing,
where he met Chinese leaders who insisted that the United States adhere to the
"one-China policy", or in other words, stop selling advanced arms to Taiwan.
In the face of such bellicose remarks - and the clear discomfort in Washington
about being drawn into a conflict - Taiwan is attempting its own military
transformation, although on a far smaller scale than China. Taipei focuses on
two major areas of military reform: acquisition of advanced weaponry and
hardware and restructuring its forces.
Maintaining the status quo aids China buildup
The sale of advanced weapons systems to Taiwan by the United States has always
been a major sticking point between Beijing and Washington, but this has not
deterred the US from approving such military items as it deems vital to
"maintaining the status quo" in the Taiwan Strait. Some observers, however,
have questioned this policy of military balance, arguing that with China's
rapid military advancement, the status quo is in fact a continual escalation in
the quantity and quality of Beijing's military forces and their armaments. To
these observers, Beijing's policy of increasing the number of medium-range
ballistic missiles within striking distance of Taiwan constitutes a clear
threat to the strategic stability of the region.
Taiwan has nominally agreed to cooperate with the US in developing an
anti-ballistic missile defense system, but until such a system is in operation,
its promise is meaningless. According to a statement widely attributed to
Jean-Paul Sartre, "Ten percent of nothing is still nothing."
Without plunging into the debate over the utility and feasibility of such a
system, it is clear that three, or 10, or even 50 PAC-III Patriot missile
batteries would be of little use should China decide to launch a saturation
attack against strategic targets in Taiwan, using Beijing's currently deployed
missile forces.
However, lack of utility and prohibitive cost have rarely prevented an armed
service from acquiring a shiny new weapon system, and the desire of US defense
contractors to turn a buck off of China's military threats, coupled with the
political clout of the politicians who need their support, will ensure that
Washington continues to recommend and approve a wide array of expensive arms to
Taipei.
Taiwan, however, lacks the money to buy all of the military hardware it would
need to defend itself. On Monday, according to Taiwan's United Daily News
newspaper, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced that it would
budget US$14.7 billion to purchase its top-priority US weapons systems: eight
diesel submarines, three PAC-III missile batteries and several P-3C Orion
maritime patrol/anti-submarine warfare aircraft.
In addition, as reported by Jane's Missiles and Rockets, Taiwan is also in the
process of developing its own short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, as
well as land-attack cruise missiles. If deployed in the next few years, these
weapons could provide Taipei with a minimal deterrent force.
Struggling to reorganize, create volunteer army
Meanwhile, Taiwan is also seeking to reorganize its force composition and its
command and control infrastructure.
Taiwan has about 300,000 active-duty personnel, according to the Ministry of
National Defense. Of these forces, about 60 percent are conscripts, required to
perform 20 months - recently reduced from 24 months - of military service under
the island's military-service law.
The conscription system is unpopular in Taiwan both among civilians and
professional military personnel, For this reason, the MND has begun to consider
creating an all-volunteer military force. Its efforts thus far have proved it
will be a difficult task.
Dr Larry Wortzel, a retired US Army colonel who specializes in cross-Strait
security issues, estimates that it would take about five years for Taiwan to
create a primarily volunteer military force.
The greatest obstacle, he says, would be creating an ethic of national service
and changing the local culture to accept a military career as a viable and
respected profession.
The perception of military service among most Taiwanese young people is that it
is a waste of time. In Taiwan's often bruising job market, young students just
out of high school or college think they lose their edge and become less
competitive by performing their military service. Conscripts' pay is much less
than the average monthly salary in Taiwan, and the conditions of service leave
much to be desired.
Taiwan youth scorn poor, 'backward' China
Furthermore, since Taiwan's military was basically a branch of the Chinese
Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang (KMT), for most of its history, young
Taiwanese are often unable to identify with much of the retained symbolism and
institutional character of the armed services. Talk of retaking "the Chinese
mainland from the communist bandits" may have been inspirational to young KMT
scions in the 1950s, but it has little impact on modern Taiwanese youth, most
of whom would rather never visit China - which many perceive as backward,
impoverished and corrupt - let alone "invade" it.
In any case, the results of the Defense Ministry's efforts last year to create
three all-volunteer units - an army motorized infantry battalion, a marine
infantry battalion and an air force guards battalion - confirm that young
people have little desire to join the military. Of the more than 600 service
members the MND required, it was only able to secure 298 volunteers. The MND
now estimates that by 2012, it could achieve a ratio of 60 percent volunteer to
40 percent conscripts.
Creating an all-volunteer military is part of the overall effort to develop a
comprehensive defensive posture that is more realistic than the current
strategy of preventing a large-scale coastal invasion. Taiwan has been
repeatedly criticized for its apparent inability - or unwillingness - to face
the reality that China is developing an array of options for military action in
the Taiwan Strait, and is no longer limited to carrying out a massive
amphibious landing.
Analysts say Taiwan's major problem is preventing a Chinese missile attack from
devastating its military forces. This could only be overcome by creating
redundant command and control systems and hardening strategic positions, or
rendering them less vulnerable to damage or destruction from missile attack.
Wortzel also recommended that Taiwan focus specifically on hardening defensive
positions for aircraft and coastal artillery, so that they would have a greater
chance of surviving a missile strike.
US, Japan reject expanded Chinese influence
For the foreseeable future, Taiwan's hope of thwarting an attack by China lies
in a happy confluence of interests with the US and Japan. The United States, as
the guarantor of stability in East Asia, has no desire to watch a belligerent
and aggressive China expand its influence eastward. Japan, as the pre-eminent
economic and military power in the region, is already in direct competition
with Beijing economically and would not stand idly by while the People's
Liberation Army embarked on the conquest of a neighboring democracy.
Therefore, Taipei has increased its unofficial military exchanges and
cooperation with Tokyo and Washington in an effort to secure their support in
the event of a conflict. Japan has a number of retired Self-Defense Force
personnel stationed in Taipei, acting as military liaisons. The US military and
defense officials also make regular visits to Taiwan in semi-official
capacities, and Taiwanese military personnel frequently train in the US.
Such exchanges are beneficial to Taiwan, but they are no guarantee of military
aid. Taiwan has broad bipartisan support in the US Congress and among a number
of senior Liberal Democratic Party policymakers in Japan, but China is
increasing its effort to undermine Taiwan's support in both countries. And the
US has been saying it needs China's support to deal with the North Korean
nuclear crisis.
The solution, from Taiwan's point of view, is to transform the informal Treaty
of Mutual Security and Cooperation between the United States of America and
Japan into a formal security alliance, ensuring US and Japanese intervention
should China attack Taiwan.
The solution, from Taiwan's point of view, is to transform the regional
security framework based on the Taiwan Relations Act and the Treaty of Mutual
Security between the United States of America and Japan into a formal treaty
alliance, ensuring American and Japanese intervention should China attack
Taiwan.
This is unlikely to occur given the present state of cross-Strait
relations. But as many commentators have pointed out, with the recent election
victory of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian - perceived as pro-independence
and hostile to Beijing - China can no longer pretend that the majority of
Taiwanese desire unification with China.
And neither can Washington and Tokyo.
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