http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg, Taipei's $30.4b proposal to buy US weaponry is a response to the more than 500 missiles pointing its way, a signal of the Chinese threat
BEIJING – Not too long ago, Taiwanese Vice-President Annette Lu labelled the current cross-strait situation as a 'quasi-war', pointing to the more than 500 missiles ranged along China's south-eastern coast and aimed at the island.
On Tuesday, Taiwan's Parliament opened a new session and on the cards was a special budget of US$18 billion (S$30.4 billion) to buy advanced weaponry from the United States.
The weaponry includes Patriot anti-missile systems PAC-III, diesel-engine submarines and Orion P-3 anti-submarine aircraft.
China's short-range Dongfeng or East Wind missiles – including the DF-11 and DF-15 – pointed at Taiwan will be cited as a key threat.
To the Taiwanese, and Americans as well, these have become an important reason for Taiwan to be better equipped and for closer military cooperation between the two.
'Those missiles have now become a centrepiece in the reasoning for additional US military aid for and cooperation with Taiwan,' said Rear-Admiral (Ret) Eric McVadon of the US Navy in a written reply to The Straits Times.
He and other American analysts believed that while the missiles were at first meant to be a psychological deterrent to moves towards independence, they have become a centrepiece of Chinese military threat over Taiwan.
The Chinese started placing missiles on the coast in the early 1990s to respond to the changing political environment in Taiwan, suggested Dr James Mulvenon, deputy director of Asia-Pacific Policy at the Rand Corporation.
'The missiles were put there as Taiwan's democratisation began to accelerate, as a way to warn Taiwan that it should not upset the status quo,' he noted.
But the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections on the island showed Beijing that it needed to prepare a credible military option, he added.
Mr Lee Teng-hui, viewed by Beijing as a secret independence activist, won Taiwan's first directly-elected presidency in 1996. Mr Chen Shui-bian of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party succeeded Mr Lee four years later.
Chinese analysts admitted as much.
A Pentagon report last year put the rate of increase of missiles along the Chinese south-eastern coast at 75 per year, up from an earlier estimate of 50.
It is undeniable that the missiles have contributed to the heightened tension in the Taiwan Strait.
But it cannot be seen as the origin of tension, Chinese analysts contended.
'It is a reactive approach, not the origin of tension,' argued Professor Jin Canrong, associate dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University.
'The origin of tension should be Taiwan,' he said, pointing to Taiwan's attempt to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.
Professor Wang Xiangsui of the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics noted that China originally did not have any missiles located in the Fujian province.
'Relations between the two sides for a long time before 1996 were relatively relaxed and there was no obvious military confrontation,' he pointed out.
But the turning point came in 1995-1996, when the then president Lee provoked China openly, he suggested.
After Mr Lee visited the US in June 1995, China test-fired missiles in the Taiwan Strait close to the island later that year.
During that trip, he made a speech at Cornell University in which he said the Republic of China on Taiwan was a separate and independent sovereignty deserving recognition from the international community, thus deviating from the one-China policy.
The Chinese press called him a traitor and accused him of trying to split the motherland.
In March the following year, China held military exercises and test-fired missiles in the Taiwan Strait again, on the eve of the first direct presidential election on the island, to discourage Taiwanese from voting for Mr Lee.
The test-firing of missiles in 1995-1996 was 'a signal' that China had the right to use other means which it deemed necessary, including military, to maintain its territorial integrity, said Prof Wang.
While China had earlier hoped to solve the situation politically, it could not see any change for the better in 1996 and the years after, and started preparing for the eventuality that the use of force is needed, he said.
'Taiwan is clearly one of the important incentives for speeding up military reform,' he noted.
He said the missiles were more a deterrence than anything else.
But he also warned that the two sides were headed for a collision and that the speed was picking up.
According to Dr Mulvenon, the situation now is different from 1995-1996 when the Chinese believed that through sabre-rattling, they could deter Taiwan from pursuing an independence course.
'The perception now is that they can no longer deter Taiwan from the course and need to carry out the effective unification of Taiwan with the mainland,' he said.
'We are closer to war than we have ever been,' he warned.
He argued that thus far, the many small decisions by Taiwan, such as putting the word 'Taiwan' on passports, were insufficient justification for war.
But by amending the Constitution, which Mr Chen had said he would do in 2006, he would give China a chance to attack 'where they will be perceived by a lot of people in the region as being justified', he said.
Worsening the situation was the belief of Mr Chen and Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party that the People's Liberation Army was a paper tiger.
As Prof Wang explained, when the late chairman Mao Zedong first described China as a paper tiger, he also said that it was nonetheless a tiger.
