Taiwan Government News,
Taiwan's military will concentrate on a more preventive policy as relations with rival China improve, the Ministry of National Defense reportedly said in its first-ever Quadrennial Defense Review published on Monday.
The document is the result of a legal amendment passed last year which requires the military to come up with such a report within 10 months of a new president taking office. The basic principles of the new preventive defense doctrine were that Taiwan should not fire the first shot or launch the first attack, but use contact, communications, negotiations to protect the country, media reported.
“If war is unavoidable, then the military will make sure the enemy is unable to bite, unable to swallow, unable to beat us to pieces,” the document said according to quotes in the Chinese-language media.
Nevertheless, this would not mean that Taiwan's military would seek to improve links with its Chinese counterpart on its own. Establishing mutual confidence-building measures was a job for the government, not for the military, officials told reporters.
The military would also focus efforts on how to respond to a military attack. Under the previous Democratic Progressive Party administration, the military emphasized the capability to keep a war outside Taiwan's main island, with some reports saying the military would strike back at China by firing missiles at its main cities.
As confirmed by government statements earlier this month, Taiwan wants to introduce all-volunteer armed forces by the end of 2014. The military's total manpower should be cut to 215,000 at that time from the 275,000 listed in the current budget, Defense Minister Chen Chao-min said. He promised to cut the number of senior officers, often a point of criticism from lawmakers and defense experts.
The defense review proposed folding the existing six branches of the military into just three, the army, the air force and the navy. The military police will become part of the army but will still be entrusted with the protection of top officials such as the president.
Chen denied that Taiwan's defense was at risk because it was sending one out of its three Patriot missile units to the United States for upgrading. The two other sets could cover for the shortage, Chen told reporters.
Taiwan is also applying to purchase 66 F-16C/D fighter jets from the U.S. because the 150 F-16 A/B planes it bought in 1992 are no longer deemed advanced enough to counter the Chinese threat. The new high-tech jets would cost an estimated US$4.9 billion, reports said.
