The Far-Eastern Sweet Potato

Taiwan places US$921m order for PAC-3 missiles

2012-02-02T00:02:00.003+08:00

Lockheed Martin Corp has confirmed the third annual purchase of PAC-3 missiles by Taiwan, though it would not specify the number of missiles included in the deal

Taiwan has placed a US$921 million order for Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles as part of its military program to strengthen its air defense capabilities, a contract notification said on Monday.

In a press statement, Lockheed Martin Corp said the contract included missile and command launch system production and a follow-on sale of the PAC-3 Missile Segment to Taiwan.

The contract includes the -production of “hit-to-kill” PAC-3 missiles, launcher modification kits, spares and other equipment, as well as program management and services, Lockheed said, with delivery beginning in the first half of next year. Richard McDaniel, Lockheed vice president for the PAC-3 missile program, told Bloomberg the missiles would be delivered in 17 months, though he declined to disclose how many missiles were included in the order.

Contacted by the Taipei Times, David Wei (魏陵瑋), executive vice president for Lockheed Martin Global, Taiwan, would not confirm the number of missiles included in the deal, saying it was common practice to keep such numbers confidential.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here. See also Sale of additional PAC-3 units to Taiwan proceeds.

Balancing act: Elections spell continuity in China-Taiwan relations

2012-02-01T00:34:00.000+08:00

President Ma, elected to a second term last month, risks being caught between a more balanced legislature and great expectations from Beijing. Let the headaches begin ...

President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) re-election on Jan. 14 should not be read as desire by Taiwanese for political negotiations with China on Taiwan's future. Despite his victory, Ma will face many more constraints during his second term, which could test Beijing's patience, as the latter expects political negotiations to begin. Domestic issues, more than cross-strait relations, will remain the key factor in Taiwanese politics during Ma's next term.

My article, published today in Jane's Intelligence Review, can be accessed here (subscription required).

Reassigned, no more foreign assignments

2012-01-31T23:21:00.004+08:00

Punished for getting caught, or her reputation too tarnished to represent Xinhua abroad, Shi Rong is now in Beijing, and she’s not going anywhere

Back in September I was among a small group of reporters who argued that the “flirtatious e-mail” scandal surrounding MP Bob Dechert, an aide to Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, and Shi Rong (施蓉), the Toronto bureau chief for Xinhua news agency, was more problematic than Ottawa would admit. While Dechert did not suffer to consequences of his indiscretions being made public — at least not in terms of his position within the Stephen Harper government — soon afterwards Shi Rong was called back to Beijing, where she remains to this day. Xinhua has since announced that a replacement had been found at the Toronto bureau.

The whole affair received little coverage outside Canada, and practically none in China. Sources in Beijing have since confirmed to me that Shi Rong was now working at Xinhua headquarters in Beijing, and that she would not be posted abroad anytime soon, if ever. Whether this is punishment for her getting caught, or that her reputation is now too tarnished for her to represent the state-owned news bureau abroad again, has yet to be established. But the same sources in Beijing scoffed at the suggestion that she was not, in some way, acting as an intelligence officer for China.

Xinhua is regarded as an extension of the Chinese intelligence apparatus, with “reporters” often answering to the Ministry of State Security (MSS) or the People’s Liberation Army General Staff Department (GSD). Most, if not all Xinhua reporters, must also pass through Central Party School, and top universities often groom future Xinhua “reporters” with perfect party credentials.

The Shi Rong controversy may have made intelligence collection by Xinhua in Canada a little more difficult, but it didn’t end with the young woman’s departure.

Navy to bolster anti-submarine warfare capabilities with ‘listening sticks’

2012-01-30T00:01:00.004+08:00

The 12 refushished P-3C Orion ASW aircraft that Taiwan has purchased from the US will be the likely platforms for the passive sonobuoys

The Taiwanese Navy is purchasing hundreds of specialized sonobuoys from the US to augment its anti-submarine warfare capabilities, a US Department of Defense notice said on Friday.

Under the Foreign Military Sale, Taiwan will acquire 440 AN/SSQ-53F sonobuoys for US$335,000, with work scheduled for completion by January 2014 (as part of the same deal, the US Navy is purchasing 49,900).

Sonobuoys, also known as “listening sticks,” are used to detect and identify moving underwater objects. The AN/SSQ-53F directional frequency and ranging (DIFAR) sonobuoy — the latest-generation passive sonobuoy used by the US Navy — is dropped from fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters and uses four hydrophones that operate at depths of 27m, 60m, 120m and 300m, as well as digital sound processors, to listen for enemy submarines.

Unlike “active” sonobuoys, which locate objects by bouncing a “ping” off a vessel, passive types gather emissions created by moving underwater objects. Aircraft can drop a pattern of sonobuoys, which relay information back to the aircraft by radio link to determine the exact location of enemy submarines.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Wang Dan, activists call for Want Want boycott

2012-01-27T00:01:00.005+08:00

Maybe it’s only for his business interests, but Tsai Eng-meng has an uncanny ability to look the other way when it would be inconvenient to acknowledge Beijing’s dark side

One of the top student leaders during the protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989 has called for a boycott of the China Times after the wealthy entrepreneur who owns the publication denied the crackdown by the Chinese military constituted a massacre.

Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明, pictured above, standing), chairman and chief executive of the Want Want Group (旺旺集團), which owns the China Times, told the Washington Post in an interview published last Saturday that the crackdown on June 4 was “no massacre.”

Tsai told my friend Andrew Higgins of the Post that he had been struck by footage of the lone protester standing in front of a People’s Liberation Army tank — a now iconic image of the crackdown — and added that the fact that the man was not killed was proof that reports of a massacre were false.

Several hundred unarmed protesters, including students, were brutally killed in the government response to the protests.

“I realized that not that many people could really have died,” Tsai said, echoing Beijing’s propaganda in the weeks after the crackdown, which said the tank incident was proof that the military had acted with humanity against the demonstrators.

Wang Dan (王丹), one of the student leaders at Tiananmen Square who now lives in Taiwan, was among many who reacted angrily to Tsai’s remarks.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here. The Facebook link to the boycott of Want Want Group products.

Taiwan Navy's mine hunting capabilities to receive boost soon

2012-01-26T00:01:00.003+08:00

China, whose navy has an estimated 10,000-100,000 naval mines, could use them to impose a sea blockade against Taiwan in time of conflict

Two refurbished mine hunters acquired by Taiwan will commence sea trials next month and are expected to be delivered to the Taiwanese Navy in May or June, British journal Jane’s Defence Weekly reported last week.

The two Osprey-class coastal mine-hunting ships USS Oriole and USS Falcon — both decommissioned from the US navy in June 2006 — were part of the US$6.4 billion arms package notified to US Congress in January 2010 as Excess Defense Articles.

The 895-tonne ships, renamed MHC 1310 Yung Jin and MHC 1311 Yung An, underwent comprehensive hull, machinery and combat management overhaul and upgrades in the US, Jane’s wrote.

At the time of announcement in 2010, the US$105 million deal was expected to include an overhaul of the AN/SQQ-32 sonar.

The ships, whose hulls are made of fiberglass and designed to survive an underwater explosion, use sonar and video equipment to detect moored and undersea mines and a remote-controlled mine detonating device to secure key waterways.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

The DPP versus corporate greed

2012-01-20T00:05:00.002+08:00

Beijing co-opted the elite and big business in Hong Kong to create dependence and ensure compliance. With four more years of KMT rule, the same could happen in Taiwan

The jury is still out on which factors were predominant in the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) inability to regain power in Saturday’s election.

Pundits have put forth sundry explanations as to why presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) did not do better, from a failure to allay fears in Taiwan and abroad of the potential impact of a DPP win on stability in the region to “gatekeepers” making it nearly impossible for her to access the information she needed from the intellectuals on her team.

The extent to which those aspects undermined Tsai’s efforts remains unknown and will be better understood in time. What cannot be denied is the impact of big business on the election. This is a serious challenge that the DPP will have to address if it is to regain high office. And that challenge will only become more formidable now that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been given four more years to further liberalize relations across the Taiwan Strait.

One clear theme that emerged from the elections is that Taiwanese, in general, desire stability. Rather than jump into the unknown by electing Tsai — notwithstanding her efforts to allay those fears — voters showed a preference for continuity and went for the devil they know.

One group, above all, that made the case for continuity, or the “status quo,” was the corporate sector, which resents instability and stands to benefit tremendously from closer ties between Taiwan and China.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Report slams US meddling in presidential election

2012-01-17T00:04:00.003+08:00

Ma’s second term is expected to be much more difficult than his first, largely because Beijing will expect him to pay it back for its help in getting him re-elected

The outcome of Saturday’s presidential election led to a “heavy sigh of relief” in Beijing and Washington, and the US did much in the run-up to the elections to boost President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) electoral bid while also hedging against the possibility of a victory by the opposition, a report on the elections said on Sunday.

The possibility of a victory by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Saturday led to “very poor decision making” on some occasions within US President Barack Obama’s administration and a “reprehensible” attack on DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) via a leak to the Financial Times, at a time when Tsai was visiting Washington to explain her policy position to US officials, the US-Taiwan Business Council said in a report on the elections.

Ma defeated Tsai by a margin of about 800,000 votes on Saturday, defying expectations of a neck-and-neck race.

“With this statement, [Tsai] was greeted with what can only be seen as a slap across the face,” the report said. “This was not only meddling with the Taiwan elections, it was also inhospitable as it relates to Dr Tsai being a guest in the United States.”

“More troubling still, this was a clear effort to telegraph to the Chinese that America doesn’t like the DPP either,” it said. “To marginalize Taiwan’s democracy through ill-planted media stories or disinterest in the bilateral relationship is to invite the Chinese to continue to push back American resolve to stand by Taiwan’s democracy and to ensure that China’s next government doesn’t coerce Taiwan into arrangements that cannot be supported in Taiwan.”

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Beijing throws cloak over reporting on Taiwan elections

2012-01-15T01:45:00.002+08:00

When it comes to democracy in Taiwan, the Chinese government remains as parochial as ever, imposing tight restrictions on the media and Chinese tourists

Beijing authorities ordered Chinese media, Internet portals and Chinese tourists not to comment on yesterday’s presidential election in Taiwan, BBC Monitoring reported on Friday.

The Hong Kong-based Oriental Daily reported that the Central Propaganda Department had ordered Chinese media and Internet portals to rely solely on official media reports and refrain from commenting on the election, the report said. Under the directive, media outlets could only carry reports by Xinhua news agency and China Central Television (CCTV) and were barred from carrying their own commentary on the election, the Oriental Daily quoted several senior Chinese media executives as saying.

Popular Internet portals such as Sina, Sohu and Tencent, which during the electoral campaign had been allowed surprising, if not entirely free, coverage of the election, have now been instructed to “limit” their coverage, the report said.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Chief international observer Murkowski lambasts Paal

2012-01-14T00:04:00.004+08:00

Even if he was speaking as a private citizen, as an electoral monitor the former AIT director should have avoided saying anything that can benefit either of the candidates in the election

The head of an international delegation of electoral observers yesterday said remarks by a visiting former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director concerning today’s presidential election were “inexcusable” and were contrary to US commitments to Taiwan’s democracy.

Frank Murkowski, head of the international delegation for the International Committee for Fair Elections in Taiwan (ICFET), called a press conference after former AIT director Douglas Paal strongly endorsed in a TV interview the so-called “1992 consensus” adopted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), while calling the “Taiwan consensus” proposed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) “impractical.”

Paal, who was invited by the KMT-affiliated Prospect Foundation to lead a delegation of monitors, also raised doubts about Tsai’s ability to ensure stability across the Taiwan Strait and insinuated that Washington was apprehensive about a DPP victory in the election.

While describing the democratic process in Taiwan as “orderly” and “energetic,” Murkowski said the past two days had seen the emergence of “surprising activity.”

“I take strong issue with any inference of US policy favoring any candidate or party,” the former US senator told the press conference.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Chinese tourists ‘experience’ democracy, but …

2012-01-13T21:42:00.002+08:00

It looks like being outside on election day could be too ‘dangerous’ for Chinese tourists

A couple of reporters from Reuters parachuted to Taiwan to cover tomorrow’s elections had an interesting piece today on Chinese tourists who, according to the headline, have “flocked” to Taiwan to “experience the elections.”

Kudos to the reporters for managing to get some Chinese to comment on democracy, an effort that yielded some very telling — and at times amusing — responses, including the inevitable tai tai dragging her husband away when he tried to share his views with the press (I myself saw months ago a wife slap her husband in public after he’d been handed a pamphlet by a Falun Gong practitioner just outside Taipei 101 in downtown Taipei).

Even more interesting, though, is information a fellow reporter passed on to me yesterday at a media gathering.

After a foreign reporter, perhaps slightly older than me, had shaken hands with Wu’erkaixi and, being introduced, asked the latter where he was from and what he was doing in Taiwan (“I’m from China, and I’m a political refugee,” which then required a hint on our part — “hum, June ‘89” — as the reporter seemed to be drawing a blank), another journalist, also a Canadian, told me he’d learned that a number of Chinese tour groups had been “ordered” to stay in their hotel rooms on election day.

Now, I have been unable to determine whether this directive applies to all Chinese tour groups or only a select few, and I also don’t know if the order comes from the Chinese side or Taiwan’s. One thing is certain: the Taiwanese tour guide who accompanied the group of Chinese walked away when the question was asked, while the ubiquitous Chinese tour guide/communist minder confirmed the directive.

So much for experiencing the elections!

Politicizing electoral monitors

2012-01-13T03:27:00.003+08:00

Through no fault of theirs, international observers arrive here facing a credibility handicap, victims of a political system whose impartiality is oftentimes observed in the breach

It is always encouraging to see members of the international community pay attention to Taiwan, whose travails as it navigates the rough seas of its relations with China are often conveniently ignored for the sake of “larger” considerations.

Given the potential ramifications of tomorrow’s presidential elections for regional security and Taipei’s relations with Beijing, it is unsurprising that an army of foreign reporters and academics would be parachuted into Taiwan to observe its rambunctious democracy at work.

Equally welcome is the arrival of international observers who have been invited by local organizations to monitor the elections to ensure that the process is fair and does justice to the sacrifices made by previous generations of Taiwanese who, for decades, did not have the privilege of selecting their leader.

In a highly charged campaign marked by scandals — from the possible falsification of evidence used in allegations against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to claims that intelligence agencies engaged in illegal surveillance against her — the presence of neutral electoral monitors from abroad could provide a much-needed dose of sobriety to the whole affair. Or it should have.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

China pans Taiwan navy’s new attack boat

2012-01-12T00:11:00.004+08:00

The vessel is top-heavy because of its tall superstructure, which raises its ‘center of buoyancy’ and makes it bob around like a cork in high seas. That compromises its ability to go to sea and fight in all weather

The Ministry of National Defense yesterday refused to comment on a report in the Chinese Communist Party-run Guangming Daily saying that the Kuang Hua VI (KH-6, 光華六) fast attack missile boats that have been in service in the Taiwanese navy since 2010 were plagued by deficiencies and were a “fantasy.”

Taiwan commissioned its first squadron of 11 KH-6 radar-evading fast-attack craft, produced by China Shipbuilding Corp, in May 2010. Since then, 20 more of the 170-tonne boats have entered service, the most recent 10 on Dec. 2 last year at Tsuoying Naval Base in Greater Kaohsiung. The 31 boats comprise the navy’s three squadrons, which have been dubbed Hai Chiao (Sea Sharks).

Each boat, which costs about US$12.3 million, comes equipped with four Hsiung Feng II anti-ship missiles with a range of 150km, as well as a 20mm anti-aircraft gun, a 7.62mm machine gun and decoy systems. The KH-6s, which have gradually been replacing the Navy’s Israeli-made Hai Ou (Sea Gull)-class missile patrol boats, are integral to the defense of Taiwan’s waters. Given the narrowness of the Taiwan Strait, the boats would be able to attack targets at naval bases along China’s coast.

[...]

The Guangming Daily on Tuesday claimed that the program was beset with problems and called the Sea Sharks a “fantasy.” At issue, the paper said, was the fact that the guns on the KH-6 needed to be operated manually, which undermined the craft’s “stealth” capability. The article also said the craft was ill-suited for the rough weather conditions in the Taiwan Strait, pointing to an incident involving a prototype that lost power and became stranded on an outer seawall during Typhoon Jangmi in September 2008. In all, the paper said, those deficiencies imposed “several restrictions” on the boats’ use.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here, with comments by James Holmes and Wendell Minnick. My take on the same story for Jane’s Navy International can be accessed here (subscription required).

A plot against first-time voters?

2012-01-11T10:57:00.005+08:00

For generational reasons, young voters tend to support the opposition DPP more than they do the KMT. And it is this group that faces extra hurdles in making it to the voting booth on Jan. 14

As many as 1.8 million Taiwanese, or close to 10 percent of the about 18 million eligible voters,* could cast their ballot for the first time in Saturday’s elections, a number that could be a deciding factor in what has been a neck-and-neck presidential race.

As a young democracy that held its first presidential election in 1996 after nearly half a century of authoritarian rule, the impressive voter turnout in major elections — which this year will once again be above 80 percent — is commendable, and highlights the commitment of Taiwanese to a system that became theirs after years of democratic struggle by their forefathers.

Sadly, it now appears that not all voters are equal.

Last year the Taiwanese government announced that, for the first time in the nation’s history, the presidential and legislative elections would be merged. As a consequence, the presidential election, which historically had been held on March 20, was moved up by more than two months, to January 14.

Although the authorities claimed the measure was adopted to cut expenses on expensive electoral campaigns — and no doubt holding the elections concurrently will achieve this aim — it also leaves some voters at a disadvantage. And this includes young voters.

My article, published today on the University of Nottingham's Ballots & Bullets Web site, continues here.

*The original numbers I gave in my piece were substantially lower than actual figures. I have fixed them here, and am hoping that Ballots & Bullets will be kind enough do so on their site as well. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the size of the population that is expected to reach voting age by election day is 1.8 million, not 760,000 as I originally stated in my article, making it about 10 percent of total voters, not 4.2 percent. If one reads the CEC figures carefully (which I did not), the number 760,000 represents the increase in registered voters from the election in 2008. That said, this figure does not take the mortality rate into account, which means that the number of first-time voters must be higher — the 760,000 plus the replacement for voters who died between 2008 and 2012.

MND closely monitoring Chinese SLBM tests [UPDATED]

2012-01-10T00:03:00.014+08:00

After several years of delay, the PLA Navy could now able to launch submarine-based ballistic missiles at a near wartime frequency

The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said it was closely monitoring the situation amid reports that China had test-fired Julang-2 (JL-2, 巨浪-2) submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) before the New Year.

Chinese military bulletin boards recently lit up with reports that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy might have test fired as many as six JL-2 SLBMs near Dalian in Liaoning Province, China. At least two Type 094 Jin-class submarines in China’s Northern Fleet are known to operate out of Xiaopingdao Submarine Base close to Dalian (see satellite imagery below).

China plans to introduce up to five Type 094 second-generation nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) armed with JL-2 missiles. Each Type 094 submarine can carry as many as 12 missiles. The JL-2, designed by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp’s 4th Academy, is a solid-propellant derivative of the Dong Feng 31 (DF-31) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The JL-2, one of China’s three long-range strategic missiles, has a maximum range estimated at 8,000km and can carry a thermonuclear warhead with a yield ranging from 25 kilotons to 1,000 kilotons, or about 80 times the force of the nuclear device dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

[...]

The state-owned Chinese-language Global Times reported yesterday that a Chinese fisherman in Shandong Province had retrieved cylindrical wreckage from what appeared to be a missile booster, which could provide confirmation of the SLBM test.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here. My coverage for Jane's Defence Weekly can be accessed here (subscription required). NOTE: While MND initially seemed to confirm in comments to the Taipei Times that the missile tests had taken place, it has since claimed that it neither confirms nor denies the reports.

Facing Reality in the Cross-Strait Balance of Power

2012-01-06T00:55:00.003+08:00

Rather than enter a plane-for-plane arms race with China, Taiwan must adopt an asymmetrical strategy that involves a focus on offensive weapons and the means to render the cost of war too high for China

For years, defense experts have predicted there would come a time when the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait would shift in Beijing’s favor. That moment has arrived, and barring a catastrophic implosion in China, there is no going back. For more than a decade, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has benefited from substantial increases in annual defense expenditure. What are the implications for Taiwan, and how can Taipei best deal with the great changes brought about by the shift in the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait?

My full paper, presented to the Taiwan Society on Thursday, can be downloaded here. My presentation can be watched here.

Taiwan first international client for AH-64D Apache Longbow [UPDATED]

2012-01-06T00:07:00.007+08:00

The announcement confirms that Taiwan will be the first country outside the US to obtain the world's most advanced combat helicopter, whose fire control radar can locate as many as 128 targets within one minute

Taiwan has become the first country to make an international purchase of the Block III Longbow Fire Control Radar (FCR), a powerful target acquisition and prioritization system and a key component of the AH-64D Apache helicopter.

This was made official in a Lockheed Martin Corp press release on Wednesday, which stated that Longbow Limited Liability Co, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman Corp, had received a US$181 million contract from the US Army for AH-64D Apache Block III Longbow systems.

According to the press release, the contract includes the first international purchase of the Block III Longbow Fire Control Radar (FCR), for a total of 15 Block III Longbow FCR systems.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

UPDATE: A source close to the defense industry informs me that due to cost considerations, Taiwan has for the time being delayed purchase of the AGM-114L Hellfire missiles included in the October 2008 package. In other words, the fancy FCR capabilities will be essentially useless.

Rumors, scandal and the outcome of Taiwan 2012

2012-01-05T02:24:00.003+08:00

In a presidential campaign that can only be described as underwhelming, the scandals have failed to convince voters to change their longstanding political preferences

The campaigns for the January 14 presidential and legislative elections in Taiwan will be remembered mostly for the allegations and counter-allegations made by the main contestants in the race rather than their policy platforms. It would therefore be logical to assume that the headline-grabbing scandals will be determinant factors in voting decision.

They will not. Despite claims, which first emerged in Next Magazine and have since been picked up by international media, that the National Security Council ordered the national security apparatus to spy on President Ma Ying-jeou’s opponents in the election, there is little evidence that such allegations have had any impact on expected voting patterns. This also appears to be the case with repeated allegations that cabinet officials have violated political neutrality by supporting Ma.

The same applies to the charges by Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that Tsai Ing-wen, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate, illegally profiteered from her role in Yu Chang Biologics Co when she was vice premier. In both cases (there were other, lesser ones), documents have been brought forth that appear to support the claims advanced by the accusers.

My article, published today on the University of Nottingham’s Bullets & Ballots Web site, continues here.

Chinese satellites turn ‘dumb’ bombs into ‘smart’ ones

2012-01-03T00:15:00.000+08:00

China has been developing the GPS-based kit since 2003. Now that the Beidou positioning system is operational, the smart bombs have gotten smarter

Fears surrounding the commercial debut of the China’s Beidou (北斗) satellite navigation system last week have centered on the development by the Chinese military in recent years of a bomb kit that can transform “dumb” bombs into “smart” ones.

Chief among them is the Lei Shi-6 (LS-6, 雷石-6) “Thunder Stone” precision-guided glide bomb first unveiled by the Luoyang Optoelectro Technology Development Center in late 2006. The guidance “fit,” which is attached to conventional bombs and has deployable wings, can support a number of bomb weights, from 50kg to 500kg.

Once installed, a “dumb” bomb becomes a “standoff” maneuverable precision-guided bomb similar to the US-developed Joint Attack Direct Munition (JDAM), which relies on US satellites for guidance. Unlike laser-guided weapons, projectiles using satellites for guidance can be used in any weather conditions.

Relying on the navigation capabilities provided by the Beidou satellites, aircraft pilots could limit their exposure to an enemy’s aircraft and air defense system by releasing their smart bomb from a distance. The LS-6 has a range of 40km when dropped at an altitude of 8,000m and 60km at 10,000m, bringing its ordnance at a speed of Mach 1 to within 15m of a target.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

A professional military comes at a cost

2012-01-03T00:14:00.002+08:00

Creating an all-volunteer force is a hugely expensive endeavor that requires fundamental changes in training and organization. Getting it wrong could severely undermine national defense

The Ministry of National Defense confirmed on Thursday that it would implement an all-volunteer military system next year and drastically cut down on the military training citizens born after 1993 will have to undergo.

Plans to create a professional military did not begin with the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Not only did Ma allude to a similar commitment in 2008, but the idea was already being discussed under former President Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government.

Why two administrations that tend to disagree with each other on so many issues have both expressed a desire to create an all-volunteer military is simple: It makes sense — at least on paper.

However, if such a plan were to materialize next year, the legislature would either have to be willing to release extraordinary budgets or substantially increase the annual defense budget. Judging from its performance in the past four years, the Ma administration, even with his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enjoying a super-majority in the legislature, has shown no inclination to release such a budget.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Chinese magazine pressured on Taiwan elections

2011-12-30T03:08:00.003+08:00

Caijing, one of the rare independent publications in China, appears to have run into the limits of Beijing’s willingness to allow coverage on the election and Taiwan’s democratization

Despite signs the Chinese authorities are allowing unprecedented access to information about next month’s elections in Taiwan, Beijing remains intransigent on certain issues it regards as lines in the sand and it is taking action to ensure that its control remains unchallenged.

A senior editor at Caijing (財經), an independent Beijing-based publication that focuses predominantly on finance and politics, was recently invited by the Lung Yingtai Foundation in Taipei to visit Taiwan for a month to experience the elections, said Bruce Jacobs, a professor of Asian languages and studies at Monash University in Australia and a specialist on Taiwan.

Founded in 2005 by a group of entrepreneurs and intellectuals, the foundation is committed to fostering cultural exchanges, intellectual dialogue and enlivening a positive civic spirit within a democratic framework. The foundation has previously invited Chinese academics and journalists to visit Taiwan on cultural exchanges.

However, the senior editor’s application to visit Taiwan was rejected by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), Jacobs said. Undaunted, the editor, whose identity could not be revealed for this article, decided to travel to Taiwan via Hong Kong. Within 48 hours of his arrival, the TAO had reportedly faxed a document to the magazine’s office asking it to explain what the editor was doing in Taiwan.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Beidou satellites raise fears of threat to Taiwan

2011-12-29T00:02:00.003+08:00

With resolution reaching 10 meters next year, the Beidou constellation of orbiters could provide guidance coordinates for a number of military devices, from precision-guided munitions to unmanned vehicles

Defense specialists are warning that China’s Beidou (北斗) satellite-based navigation system, which began providing services on Tuesday, could pose a long-term threat to Taiwan’s security and they are calling for countermeasures.

Xinhua news agency announced on Tuesday that the Beidou (“Compass”) Navigation Satellite System had begun providing initial positioning, navigation and timing services for China and the surrounding areas. Hoping to diminish its reliance on the US’ global positioning systems (GPS), China began work on the Beidou system in 2000.

Ten satellites which form the Beidou “constellation” have been launched since 2007, with six more launches scheduled for next year to provide extended coverage for the Asia-Pacific region. By 2020, the Beidou constellation will comprise 35 satellites.

At present, only the US and Russia, with its Glonass constellation of 24 satellites, have fully operational satellite-based navigation services, with the EU’s Galileo expected to enter full service in 2013. According to an October 2008 article by Jane’s Defence Weekly, China’s involvement in the Galileo project might have benefited the development of the Beidou constellation, especially dual-use technology used by the EU consortium.

Although China claims Beidou will provide commercial services, such as mapping, fishery, transport, meteorology and telecommunications, the system could also be of great assistance to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Taiwan Air Force upgrading ‘Skyguard’ system

2011-12-28T00:01:00.005+08:00

One defense analyst has called the upgrade the best development in the nation’s point defenses against precision-guided munitions

Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against Chinese aircraft and missile attacks is expected to receive a shot in the arm following the scheduled completion next year of an upgrade program for its “Skyguard” short-range air defense system.

As part of the three-year, NT$3.08 billion (US$101.6 million) “Tian Wu 7” (天武7) air defense upgrade program launched in 2009, Taiwan’s air force has been converting the GDF-003 Oerlikon 35mm twin cannons that are part of the Skyguard Air Defense System to a GDF-006 configuration, which will use Advanced Hit Efficiency And Destruction (AHEAD) munitions to shoot down manned aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles, air-to-ground missiles and other targets.

Each AHEAD round consists of a shell filled with 152 tungsten pellets with a small programmable charge timed to detonate several meters in front of the target, sending an expanding cone of pellets forward to destroy the incoming projectile.

According to this month’s edition of the Chinese-language Asia-Pacific Defense Magazine, the air force has 24 “Sky Sentinel” radar units and 50 Oerlikon 35mm twin cannons. Each barrel can fire 550 rounds per minute at an altitude of about 4km and within a range of 8.5km.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Ex-AIT director taking fire in Hong Kong

2011-12-27T00:17:00.003+08:00

First it was media mogul Jimmy Lai acting as paymaster to the opposition. Now Stephen Young is being accused of trying to create chaos in the territory. All signs that Beijing is nervous about 2012

Former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director Stephen Young has run into trouble with Chinese authorities in Hong Kong for reportedly ignoring “solemn warnings” to keep quiet about democracy in the territory, the Washington Post reported.

Young, who assumed the position of US consul-general in Hong Kong in March last year, has in recent months faced accusations by Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-controlled media in the territory of being part of a US plot to sow discord in the territory to “keep China down.”

Leading the attacks against Young, the Chinese-language and pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po has said the diplomat comes from “an anti-China, anti-communist family,” adding that “wherever he goes, there is trouble and so-called color revolution.” The paper has also reportedly launched attacks on academics who favor democratic reform in Hong Kong.

The Mandarin-speaking Young was AIT director from March 2006 until July 2009, and US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan from 2003 until 2005, when the former Soviet republic was rocked by a democratic uprising.

The severity of the campaign against Young climbed a notch after Lu Xinhua (呂新華), head of the Hong Kong branch of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made a personal rebuke during a meeting with reporters in Hong Kong recently.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Bad, bad timing on visa waiver announcement

2011-12-27T00:11:00.002+08:00

Both the DPP and the KMT deserve praise for the achievement. But the US timed its announcement in a way that invites exploitation by the KMT ahead of crucial elections

Some great news came Taiwan’s way on Thursday when the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) announced that Taiwan had been put on the candidate list for the US’ visa-waiver program, taking the nation another step closer to sealing the coveted agreement.

However welcome the news may have been, the timing could hardly have been worse, coming as it did a mere three weeks before the closely fought presidential election. Washington’s decision to make the announcement when it did can be explained in two ways: either is it naive and unaware of the political uses that could be made of the news or, despite its professions to the contrary, it is taking sides in Taiwan’s elections. Either way, this does not reflect too well on Washington’s ability to remain neutral in the electoral affairs of a democratic ally.

Reporters had hardly made their way back from the AIT when Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tung Kuoyu (董國猷) was heard hailing the announcement as reflecting Washington’s high degree of confidence in President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). For his part, KMT Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) compared the nomination to a “cardiac stimulant” that gave Ma an advantage over Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in the election.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

First Chinese aircraft carrier could soon embark on third sea trial

2011-12-21T01:49:00.002+08:00

Less that two weeks after completing its second sea trial, the Varyag looks set to embark on a third journey at sea

China’s Liaoning Air Police on Monday issued a navigational warning for a zone northwest of the Bohai Sea, east of Dalian, where the country’s first aircraft carrier is berthed, amid reports that the refurbished Soviet-era vessel could soon embark on a third sea trial.

The 60,000 tonne Kuznetsov-class Varyag returned to Dalian Port on Dec. 11 after completing a 13-day sea trial, its second since the carrier was officially unveiled to the world.

Quoting military enthusiasts at Dalian, the reports said the Varyag was docked at the pier and that “faint smoke” was emanating from the vessel, a sign that the engines were running.

[...]

In addition, the life rafts had not been removed and weapons systems were not covered by protective sheeting, reports said. Unnamed sources said landings could be attempted during the third sea trial. No date has been given yet for the operation.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Calm down, no DF-21D’s heading our way

2011-12-20T21:07:00.003+08:00

There’s already enough speculation about China’s intentions out there. We don’t need journalistic irresponsibility to amplify the problem

Readers who are feeling a sense of alarm over recent reports in Taiwanese media that China could test-fire a Dong Feng-21D anti-ship missile in the Taiwan Strait prior to the Jan. 14 elections in Taiwan should note that the article in Defense News from which those claims originate was in fact a Nov. 21 op-ed by Roger Cliff, formerly of RAND Corp and now at the Project 2049 Institute. Once again, media here are omitting to mention that very crucial factor in news making — neglect that got me into no small amount of trouble when a certain newspaper failed to mention that when it did a write-up of one of my op-eds in the Wall Street Journal.

Besides the fact that firing a DF-21D (or any missile, for that matter) off Taiwan mere days prior to a key presidential election in Taiwan would be the height of folly on Beijing’s part (one assumes it learned its lesson from the missile crisis of 1995-96), what Cliff does in his op-ed is merely speculative, based on the auspiciousness of one-one-one, added to the fact that China has used Jan. 11 on previous occasions to conduct “surprise” military tests.

There is a very real difference between “hard news” and opinion. Had that distinction been made, no journalist would have asked a Ministry of National Defense spokesman at a press conference today (and in the process, made a fool of himself) to comment on “alleged plans by China to fire a ‘carrier killer’ missile near Taiwan before the elections.”

A tyrant, a dissident and a writer

2011-12-20T00:16:00.008+08:00

Three larger-than-life men passed away in the past few days, and each, in his own way, will leave a mark on history

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who for more than 17 years led an autocratic economic system that could only be described as the very antithesis of capitalism, would have taken delight at the irony that stock markets across Asia had dropped following the announcement of his death.

Equally ironic, albeit for different reasons, is that his death occurred within 24 hours of that of another man at the other end of the political spectrum, former Czech president Vaclav Havel, and within 48 hours of that of a staunch opponent of totalitarianism, Christopher Hitchens.

More than the era in which they lived unites the trio, as each played a role in defining our times, and each was an actor on the stage where totalitarianism collided with liberty.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Sale of additional PAC-3 units to Taiwan proceeds

2011-12-20T00:02:00.003+08:00

After initial fears that the year-end deadline to sign the LOA would pass, the agreement is finally inked

Raytheon has signed a US$685.7 million Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract to provide two additional new fire units of the combat-proven Patriot Air and Missile Defense System for Taiwan, the company announced.

In a press release last week, the defense contractor said the fire units would feature new advanced technology, improved man-machine interface and reduced life cycle costs.

In 2008, Raytheon was awarded a contract to upgrade Taiwan’s existing Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) systems, followed by a second one in 2009 for new systems. The first PAC-3 upgraded radar system was delivered to Taiwan earlier this year, 10 months ahead of the original program plan requested by the Taiwanese Air Force.

The new fire units were part of the US$6.4 billion arms package agreed by the administration of US President Barack Obama in January last year.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

US qualms may have nixed Taiwan space launch program

2011-12-19T00:06:00.003+08:00

Potential military applications may have prompted Washington to apply pressure on Taiwan not to embark on an indigenous satellite launcher program

US fears that an indigenous satellite launcher capability for Taiwan could help it develop longer-range missiles may have forced Taipei to abandon, or at least delay, the project, sources told the Taipei Times.

After years of relying on foreign space-launch capabilities to lift payloads into space, reports began emerging in 2008 that Taiwan’s National Space Program Office (NSPO) had long-term plans to develop an indigenous satellite and launcher for scientific use.

At the Fourth Asian Space Conference that year, a paper presented by NSPO officials said the agency’s first choice to launch FORMOSAT-6, a micro-satellite under development to carry out scientific investigation, would be the Taiwan Small Launch Vehicle (TSLV).

[...]

A cable from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) dated April 6, 2009, reported that then-NSPO director-general Miau Jiun-jih (苗君易) had informed the AIT five days earlier that the agency’s long-term plan called for Taiwan to develop an indigenous satellite and launcher and that Taiwan was “very keen for US reaction to that plan.”

The cable said Miau had told the AIT that the TSLV would be locally built in cooperation with CSIST and used to propel locally made satellites weighing between 50kg and 200kg into orbit. A test launch for a 50kg satellite — very likely FORMOSAT-6 — was scheduled for next year to collect data on disaster management and environmental observation.

Based on the lack of progress in developing a TSLV, it appears the US reaction to the plan was negative.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

In memoriam: Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T16:54:00.007+08:00

Writer, journalist, book lover, renaissance man, Christopher Hitchens passed away yesterday at age 62, after a battle with esophageal cancer

Often controversial, Mr Hitchens never minced his words and would not self-censor for the sake of political correctness. Everybody, and every subject, was fair game, from Henry Kissinger to Mother Theresa. Even religion.

It would be impossible, given his body of work, to agree with everything the man wrote; for me, his apparent volte-face on Iraq following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US, after years of taking up the Palestinian cause alongside the likes of his friend Edward Said (whom he still does not spare in his memoir, Hitch-22), was one such occasion where we parted ways ideologically (not that he was alone, as another inspiration of mine, Michael Ignatieff, made a similar U-turn).

The occasional disagreement notwithstanding, Mr Hitchens served as a tremendous inspiration on my career as a journalist. The breadth of his knowledge (there isn’t a book he doesn’t seem to have read; his collection of essays, Arguably, makes that pretty clear) and the sheer musicality of his writing soared to such heights as I cannot ever hope to achieve, though both remain, fixed high above, as a reflection of what I aspire to. (Some critics of my writing style, which tends to favor long, complex sentences, should know that Mr Hitchens shares some of the blame. He is also partly to blame for the piles of books that occupy a lot of floor space at my house.)

Whether one liked or disliked him — and there are plenty in both camps — Mr Hitchens’ departure is a great loss to journalism, literature, and all of us who continually strive to make sense of this complex, mad world of ours.

I wish I could write something better to do the man justice, but this is all I can summon for the moment. Cheers, Mr Hitchens.

Taiwan giving up on US subs, eyeing local plan

2011-12-15T00:05:00.000+08:00

MND has reportedly commissioned a local shipbuilder to contract a country other than the US capable of building submarines for cooperation in building conventional subs

Taiwan has all but given up on acquiring diesel-electric submarines from the US and is expected to embark on a domestic program with assistance from abroad, a leading defense analyst told the Taipei Times.

Longstanding plans to augment Taiwan’s small and aging submarine fleet gained momentum in 2001, when the administration of US president George W. Bush offered to provide eight diesel-electric submarines to Taiwan for about US$12 billion.

With efforts going nowhere, in 2003 the Pentagon suggested that Taiwan consider buying refurbished submarines from Italy, and Rome reportedly agreed to sell four Nazario Sauro-class boats and an additional four following their decommissioning by the Italian Navy. However, Taipei rejected the offer, saying it wanted new submarines.

As a result of political wrangling in Taiwan’s legislature, moves by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the US to appease Beijing amid efforts at cross-strait reconciliation, and pressure from China on Washington, Bush’s deal never materialized. [...] The arms package announced to the US Congress by US President Barack Obama in October did not include submarines, or even a feasibility study.

This could be about to change, with a US defense analyst familiar with the Taiwanese military saying he feels positive the navy will move ahead on the submarine program in the not-so-distant future.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Ministry in F-16 upgrade wrangle

2011-12-14T00:26:00.002+08:00

The Taiwanese Air Force could save a lot of money if it asked suppliers to bid on the jets’ upgrade, but the Ministry of National Defense seems to have only one supplier in mind

The Ministry of National Defense could be contravening a legislative directive if it does not request that the US government perform an open competition bidding process for suppliers involved in upgrading its fleet of 146 F-16A/Bs.

In a meeting on Oct. 12 attended by legislators from the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) and a representative from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, the legislature stipulated that to ensure the proper use of government public resources, the ministry’s Letter of Agreement for the upgrade package for the F-16A/Bs “shall not specify any supplier and shall request the US team to perform open competition.”

Despite this directive, the ministry appears to have only one supplier in mind — Lockheed Martin Corp — and does not seem to have asked the US to facilitate competitive bids for avionics and weapons systems integration.

This comes as Lockheed Martin is locked in competition with BAE Systems over a program for avionics upgrades and weapons systems integration for 135 KF-16C/Ds for the South Korean air force (ROKAF) worth about US$1 billion.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

US has not pivoted toward Taiwan

2011-12-13T00:14:00.003+08:00

The idea that Washington has shifted its strategy on Taiwan is mere wishful thinking

There has been no shortage of optimism in recent weeks over visits to Taiwan by relatively senior US officials, with some pundits pointing to signs of a shift in US policy that would place greater emphasis on US-Taiwan ties.

The excitement stems from visits by US Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman, who arrived yesterday on a three-day visit, and that of US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah earlier this month. As media have noted, Poneman will be the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan since 2000.

Commenting on the visit on Thursday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman James Chang (章計平) said this not only proved the solidity of Taiwan-US relations, but also showed that the US was honoring its commitment to send high-ranking officials, words echoed by Edward Chen (陳一新), a US studies specialist at Tamkang University, who told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post: “By sending senior officials to visit Taiwan, the US is assuring us it will not abandon Taiwan.”

However, the fact remains that no Cabinet-level US official has visited Taiwan since the administration of former US president Bill Clinton, making, in some critics’ view, the visits more theater than substance.

My op-ed, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

The KMT is growing desperate

2011-12-13T00:08:00.002+08:00

Rather than look to the future, President Ma Ying-jeou’s presidential campaign looks to the past, trying to uncover skeletons that will give it an edge over its opponents — and Chiu Yi is happy to help

There is a general consensus among Taiwan watchers that next month’s presidential election will be pivotal for the country’s future.

Consequently, hopes have been high for presidential campaigns that provide substance on topics such as relations with China, the economy and a number of environmental issues.

Sadly for all involved, the party that from the onset had insisted it would run a “clean” and “responsible” campaign has failed to abide by its commitment and has chosen instead to turn to the past — the distant past, in some cases — as it attempts to tarnish the image of its resurgent opponent.

It is little wonder that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would say over the weekend that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), having no accomplishments to show for in its nearly four years in office, had chosen instead to launch an all-out attack on her and her party.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Chinese netizens praise democracy

2011-12-12T00:01:00.004+08:00

Despite its tight grip on the media, Beijing appears to have adopted a surprisingly open attitute to coverage of and discussions on the presidential election in Taiwan

Interest in Taiwan’s presidential election among Chinese citizens could go well beyond the actions of a man from Xinjiang who paddled from Xiamen, China, to Kinmen last week to “help” with the elections — at least if cyberspace is any indication.

Data mining conducted last week on various Chinese social media platforms seems to indicate great interest in the first presidential debate on Dec. 3 between Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜).

On the Baidu platform alone, more than 880,000 Chinese-language searches for “uncut television debate for the 2012 Taiwan Area leadership election” were recorded, with several variants also producing a high number of returns. Two combinations had more than 1 million searches.

Furthermore, Sina, the Global Times, Xinhua news agency, China Central Television (CCTV), Tencent, Phoenix, Kaidi and many local portals all contained news on the debate, although there were complaints online that some posts and video links had been deleted.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Leaked video shows greater repression in Tibet

2011-12-09T00:01:00.006+08:00

The release of video footage and photos showing Tibetans being humiliated in public and taken away by large contingents of Chinese security forces points to a possible whistleblower within the Chinese apparatus

Recently leaked footage of a crackdown by Chinese security forces in Tibet indicates that the level of repression against Tibetans appears to be much more serious than generally acknowledged by the international community.

A video posted on the exile Tibetan Web site TibetOnline.tv on Wednesday showed a raid by a Chinese SWAT team comprising about 100 People’s Armed Police (PAP) officers on what is believed to be Unit 2 of Dode Village, near the Sera monastery northeast of Lhasa.

The quality footage, which is believed to have been shot in 2008, displays an unprecedented show of force by Chinese authorities, with SWAT teams, accompanied by numerous dogs and an armored vehicle, assuming attack formation and aiming assault rifles at sleeping villagers. In all, four confused-looking men and one elderly woman are taken away. Each is forced to stare into the camera and provide details to the cameraman, who is presumably a PAP member.

Unlike previous unrest, such as the 1989 riots in Lhasa or the March 2008 incident, during which nervous and sometimes vengeful PAP officers were confronted with an emergency, the troops in the video are not responding to any immediate threat.

As of last evening, the 22-minute video appeared to have been taken offline. It has since emerged on YouTube.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

NOTES: The pictures used in this post are from eight photographs released by a Tibetan Web site last week, and are not from the video discussed in this article.

The list of names the PAP is searching for appears at 16’06” in the video and has twelve names. One of them, Pasang, 38, is believed to be the same individual sentenced to life for beating and smashing objects during the March 2008 Incident.

The level of despair among Tibetans was captured by Tsering Woeser, a Tibetan poet, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. Commenting on the 13 monks and nuns who have committed suicide in protest since 2009, Woeser said the Chinese Communist Party does not understand why this is happening.

“The despots only believe in guns and money. They not only have no faith themselves, they can't even understand the power of faith to motivate acts of great selflessness,” she wrote. “Tibetans are not so foolish that they value their lives lightly. Rather it is the despots who have ignited the flames that engulfed these monks and nuns by pushing them to the point of desperation.”

“[N]o matter how it tries to hide the self-immolations and distort their meaning, the truth continues to get out. Even in that high elevation, where Tibet stands at the end of a muzzle of a gun, there will always be Tibetans ready and willing to become ‘burning martyrs,’” she wrote.

GIO remains silent about China’s tightening media

2011-12-07T00:03:00.009+08:00

Despite vows to liberalize its media environment for the Olympics, China has imposed further restrictions on the press. This raises serious questions about cross-strait media exchanges

The Government Information Office (GIO) yesterday refused to comment on reports showing a tightening of media controls in China and said it would maintain its plan to further open Taiwan to Chinese journalists.

Chinese social media were abuzz over the weekend after remarks by the new head of China Central Television (CCTV), who said that the first job of a journalist was to serve as a “mouthpiece” for the state, were leaked on the Internet.

Hu Zhanfan (胡占凡), who took the reins at CCTV last month, said journalists who believed they were independent professionals rather than “propaganda workers” were making a “fundamental mistake.”

Although Hu had made the comments at a special forum on “fake news” in January, they quickly spread after they were posted on a Chinese microblogging site over the weekend. Angered by signs that the media environment was failing to liberalize, some Chinese Internet users likened Hu to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

By yesterday, the posting had attracted more than 10,000 responses, though most were quickly removed by censors.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Recent discussions with China and Hong Kong-based fellow journalists compelled me to try to distinguish between what I believe are two types of media censorship regarding China, both of which rear up their ugly heads in the above article. As I discussed in a recent article, there are questions about the degree to which editorials and op-eds in state-owned Chinese media, such as the People’s Daily, reflect official policy in Beijing. Some media controlled by the state, such as the Global Times, have adopted a more aggressive stance as they seek a larger marked share, and as such may aim for a more sensationalistic editorial line. On some occasions, as on the South China Sea, editorial may appear that are more nationalistic and extremist than official Chinese policy. Such media can also serve as an echo chamber reflecting debate within the Chinese elite and government circles. In general, however, the main editorial line adopted by state-controlled media exists within parameters set by the CCP, oftentimes resulting from meetings between government officials and the editors-in-chief. In other words, we can expect state-owned media to reflect, to a fair extent, official policy in Beijing. This applies to Hong Kong-based media that are also owned by “PRC interests,” such as Wen Wei Po, Ta Kung Pao, and the Hong Kong Commercial Daily.

The other type of censorship applies to media that aren’t owned by the CCP but whose owners have substantial business interests in China, a list that includes, but isn’t limited to, the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and the China Times and Want Want Bao in Taiwan. While such media are technically free of editorial meddling by Beijing, the well-being of their business interests in China is largely contingent on good relations with the CCP. Consequently, such media will usually refrain from carrying stories that are overly critical of China on human rights, Tibet, Xinjiang, the Falun Gong and Taiwan, among others. Some, either for the sake of “balance” or to please Beijing, will adopt an editorial stance that favors China, one that approximates what the editors believe Beijing wants to hear.

Locking in the ‘1992 consensus’

2011-12-06T00:09:00.004+08:00

In addition to raising questions about future political talks, the appointment of Su Chi on the SEF board sends a signal to Beijing that the KMT is bent on destroying any chances of the DPP finding an alternative to the '1992 consensus'

Upon being re-elected chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) on Friday, Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) vowed to forge ahead with negotiations under the so-called “1992 consensus,” a clear sign, if one was needed, that Beijing and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) intend to leave no room for the emergence of alternative approaches to cross-strait talks.

Chiang’s pledge plays right into the KMT’s insistence on abiding by the controversial consensus, whose existence is denied by both the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who was in office at the time the agreement was alleged to have been struck.

Chiang showed that the nation’s top cross-strait negotiator is anything but neutral, since it has been widely rumored that the DPP is hard at work trying to ensure that communication with Beijing would not cease if the party’s presidential candidate, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), were elected on Jan. 14. Although the DPP has refused to confirm the rumor, at least two of Tsai’s advisers are reportedly engaged in talks with Chinese officials on alternatives to the “1992 consensus” that would be palatable to both sides — perhaps a sign that Beijing realizes that a DPP return to the executive office is not altogether impossible.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

European election observers denied funding by MOFA

2011-12-02T00:05:00.005+08:00

Although it will not provide financial help to foreign observers, a MOFA official said technical support would be provided on a case-by-case basis to any delegation seeking to experience Taiwan's democratic development

Academics from top European institutes said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has declined to fund their visit to monitor the January elections in Taiwan, a development that follows upon similar claims by Australian academics last month.

A European source told the Taipei Times on Wednesday that the European academic election observers group, whose members would have drawn from three of the most influential think tanks in Europe — Chatham House, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP Berlin) and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute — had been informed that the ministry would not provide funding for their visit.

The source said the ministry had provided financial assistance to the European observer group for the 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential and legislative elections — under the administration of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), then of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and the Democratic Progressive Party.

This would mark the first time that the group would not be able to come to Taiwan, the source said, adding that the ministry did not provide reasons for the decision.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

UPDATE: Following publication of this article, I was informed that in the past, MOFA provided funds in the form of a donation to the Asia Research Centre at the London School of Economics (LSE), which covered a series of Taiwan-related projects, including election observers. The funds came from MOFA and the accounts had to be sent to the ministry, but to maintain academic independence they were channeled through the Centre. That Centre is no longer operative, as its director stepped down a few years ago and was not replaced.

Ex-Varyag embarks on second sea trial

2011-12-01T20:48:00.008+08:00

Unconfirmed reports claim that aircraft still cannot land on the carrier because Russia has refused to sell China the necessary arrestor cables

China's modified Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier embarked on its second official sea trial on 29 November amid rumors that it remains 'dead in the water' as a result of Russia's refusal to supply key components.

In a press conference the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said that all refit work and testing in the ex-Varyag was completed on schedule following its initial sea trial on 10 August.

The 67,000-tonne carrier left Dalian in Liaoning Province and headed for the Yellow Sea, where the latest trial is to be conducted.

My article, published on November 30 in Jane's Defence Weekly, continues here (subscription required).

PLA sets up strategic planning department

2011-11-30T15:52:00.002+08:00

Creation of the department formalizes what has been a longstanding and personalized ad hoc arrangement

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) announced on 22 November that it had set up a strategic planning department aimed at providing guidance for increasingly modern and sophisticated military operations.

According to PLA analysts, the move is seen as a very important and long-awaited initiative, especially in linking policy planning and weapons development. It is ostensibly in response to increasingly sophisticated military operations that could involve multiple combat forces and headquarters.

My article, published on Nov. 29 in Jane’s Defence Weekly, continues here (subscription required).

Chinese academic claims South China Sea holds no ‘high seas’

2011-11-29T00:06:00.004+08:00

The rhetoric on the South China Sea in official Chinese media is becoming increasingly strident. But do those editorials really reflect Beijing’s policy?

An op-ed in the Chinese-language editions of People’s Daily and Global Times says there are no international waters in the South China Sea and that China should act with strength to repel US interference in the contested area.

In the article, which appeared last week, Pan Guoping (潘國平), a law professor at China’s Southwest University of Law and Politics, disputes the claim that the South China Sea comprises gonghai (公海), or “high seas,” as the term is translated in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

According to Article 86 of the convention, “high seas” refer to “all parts of the sea that are not included in the exclusive economic zone [EEZ], in the territorial sea or in the internal waters of a State, or in the archipelagic waters of an archipelagic State.”

By denying the presence of high seas in the South China Sea, China would deny freedom of navigation and use of airspace to other countries over the entire area, which Pan made clear.

“The United States is only a passer-by in the South [China] Sea ... As a country that has no sea coast in the region, does the United States have freedom of navigation and flight in the South [China] Sea? The answer is no! There is no international water in the South [China] Sea,” he wrote.

“China should act with stronger force ... to resolutely repel [US] interference, defend China’s nine-dotted line area that history has bestowed to us,” Pan wrote, referring to the large U-shaped swathe of territory claimed by China that encompasses most of the South China Sea.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here, with more on Chinese saber rattling, confirmation by Vietnam that China used force in 1974 over disputed islets, and the launch of a strategic planning department within the PLA.

A new Cold War looms in East Asia

2011-11-29T00:01:00.002+08:00

The current dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region are making it likelier that states will engage in zero-sum behavior

Australian Minister for Defence Stephen Smith last week announced that Canberra would “seriously” consider the possibility of holding trilateral military exercises with China and the US; a move that, in a perfect world, would probably make sense.

However, the world is far from perfect, and Smith’s idea, which Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono purportedly raised with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the ASEAN summit in Bali the week before, fails to take current realities into account.

Live-fire exercises involving the US in the Asia-Pacific symbolize a key role for Washington in a region that China considers its own backyard. Rather than seek to reinforce the legitimacy of a US military role in Asia, Beijing has worked effortlessly to undermine such a role, mostly by dealing with its neighbors on a bilateral basis. This has been one of the principal reasons for the failure of regional powers to resolve long-standing tensions in the South China Sea, with Beijing refusing to participate in multilateral negotiations on the matter.

The recent announcement that the US could deploy as many as 2,500 marines at a base in Darwin, Australia, is likely to make Beijing even less inclined to give its seal of approval to such a relationship, as the deployment is anathema to China’s desire for a reduced US presence in what is rapidly becoming a key geopolitical and economic region.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Friend or foe? Canada is a target of Chinese espionage

2011-11-27T17:50:00.004+08:00

Stating the fact may be politically and economically inconvenient, but the reality remains that China has been, is, and will continue to be a major intelligence threat to Canada

The scandal surrounding the flirtatious e-mails from MP Bob Dechert, a parliamentary secretary to Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, to the Xinhua News Agency Toronto bureau chief appears to have awakened the Canadian public — and it is hoped, official — to the risk of greater engagement with China.

However, the risks associated with that bilateral relationship transcend political affiliation, and did not begin with Mr. Dechert’s first electronic indiscretion. Canada may not be China’s top priority for espionage activity, but as a highly industrialized economy with an abundance of natural resources, it nevertheless possesses a number of items that are of interest to Beijing. Only when those areas are identified will Canada’s counterintelligence authorities be able to determine the appropriate countermeasures that need to be implemented.

My article appears on page 14 of the current issue of FrontLine Security magazine.

It’s conspiracy season in Taiwan

2011-11-24T21:28:00.002+08:00

With key elections coming, wild conspiracies are starting to circulate among the public. Skepticism is in order, but this does not mean we should not be paying attention

I have, on occasion, made the case that Palestinians and Taiwanese have several things in common, including the refusal by the international community to recognize their nation and statehood, an irredentist threat from a more powerful neighbor, and the perception that their predicament is inconvenient for the powers that be.

Like analogies, this is an imperfect one. For one, Taiwanese have not, for a number of reasons, chosen the path of violence to advance their cause and are, in many respects, far better off that Palestinians, despite the ever-present threat of an invasion by China.

However, this is another aspect that unites, if only symbolically, the two peoples: the preponderance of conspiracy theories that circulate among the punditry. The Arab world in general has long been animated by conspiracy theories concerning US and Israeli designs upon their resources and territories, assassination plots and so on.

A lot of this talk in the so-called “Arab street” tends to be speculative, with little grounding in reality, but not all those theories are wrong. What has been difficult for observers of the Middle East is extracting truth from the noise for the real information. To a large extent, the same applies to Taiwan, a reality that imposes upon people with real information on plots in the making a serious handicap in terms of credibility and the willingness of external actors to take them seriously, let alone intervene on their behalf.

Conspiracies usually thrive in environments characterized by fear, uncertainty and secrecy on the part of the stronger opponent, conditions that apply to a large extent to the Arab side in the Middle East, and to Taiwan as well. A history of repression by the stronger side also aliments conspiracy making, again an element that is relevant to Taiwan — twice so, in fact, if we take both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and China as the oppressors.

Conspiracy season is upon us again, with the presidential and legislative election just around the corner. Not only is the race a very close one, but the outcome is seen by many as a pivotal point in Taiwan’s history, one that will determine whether Taiwan remains a distinct, sovereign state, or one that slowly but inexorably drifts ever closer to domination by China. Needless to say, the apprehension has reached feverish levels on the pan-green side, which expects the KMT — perhaps with help from Beijing, which would rather President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) be re-elected than see the Democratic Progressive Party re-enter the Presidential Office — to use a variety of underhanded means to ensure victory.

Representatives from the pan-green camp have already intimated to me, and presumably others, some plots they believe may be in the making. In such instances, one is counseled to take the information with skepticism. What is interesting is that the people I interacted with were already aware they were facing a credibility gap, the direct product of a culture that has allowed conspiracy theories to spread like brushfire.

When faced with such a situation, what one must pay attention to is the specificity of the information. Vague plots, those with no setting, timing, means or actors, can usually be discarded out of hand. Another important element is whether the information can be corroborated, meaning that it is obtained from more than one source (those two factors are at the core of the matrices used by intelligence agencies to assess the reliability of information in their possession, and should apply to a similar degree to the journalistic profession).

With this in mind, one piece of information that has been communicated to me in recent weeks makes me pause, as I’ve heard it more than once from more than one source. Even more importantly is how specific that information was. Starting about a month ago, I began hearing chatter about the possibility that the KMT, if defeated in January, would manufacture a crisis that would ultimately “force” the government to annul the results of the election. Back then such information remained in the “vague” and “unreliable” categories, failing as it did to provide setting, timing, means or actors (the age-old who, what, where, when).

Weeks later, however, I met individuals who did have specifics — not all of them, mind you, but enough to give the creature of conspiracy a little more flesh around the bone, as it were. And remember: I’ve been told this more than once, by more than one source. By no means should this be interpreted as meaning that the information is real, though it certainly makes it somewhat more credible and worthy of our attention.

The timing is Ma’s concession speech. The location is presumably the Presidential Office or Ma’s campaign headquarters, with a crowd nearby. The means — and this is where things become very specific — is one or more hand grenades “without a metallic casing,” which is enough to cause bodily harm while keeping destructiveness to a minimum. The only questions left unanswered for the moment are the nature of the actor (on the pan-blue side, presumably, or someone associated with China) and the actual target of the attack (Ma, an aide, or the crowd).

As to what happens next, well…

Task force working on cross-strait CBM: source

2011-11-24T00:01:00.003+08:00

Officials all denied knowledge of the alleged task force, while opponents of the Ma administration warn of the risks that under him, military CBMs with China could be signed under a one China framework

Soon after assuming office in 2008, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) established a “military confidence-building mechanism” (CBM) task force at the suggestion of then-National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起), a body that continues to function to this day, a source said.

From its inception, the task force was reportedly headed by Lieutenant General Lee Hsiang-chou (李翔宙), then-deputy dean of National Defense University (NDU), with Major General Tsao Hsiung-yuan (曹雄源), then the head of the school’s Graduate Institute of Strategic Studies, acting as deputy, said the source, who is affiliated with the Ministry of National Defense.

The task force was reportedly charged with evaluating and fleshing out a framework for Taiwan to establish military CBMs with China.

The Chinese-language United Evening News reported in August that Lee Hsiang-chou was highly trusted by the ministry and had been assigned to conduct research on certain “highly sensitive” national security issues, including a CBM with China.

The reports said Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) had specifically requested that Lee Hsiang-chou, who represented the ministry in communications with the NSC, apprise himself of developments on the CBM issue.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here, with responses from various current and former government officials, including Su Chi.

Fear descends upon the elections

2011-11-22T17:58:00.004+08:00

Sources within the DPP have said that out of concern for Tsai Ing-wen’s personal safety, the presidential candidate is unlikely to campaign in Kinmen and Matsu

Although it is too early to tell whether a telephone threat to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) presidential campaign office yesterday was the real deal, there are already indications that fear and intimidation could become an important ingredient in the January presidential election.

An unidentified man, who called twice, allegedly threatened to set Tsai’s office in Banciao (板橋), New Taipei City (新北市), ablaze. Tsai’s staff, who immediately called police, said it was the first time the office had received threatening calls.

While Tsai said she would not be intimidated by such threats, close advisers have admitted that fears for her personal safety are imposing limits on the type of campaigning she will be able to do in the lead-up to the Jan. 14 polls.

One example of this is the DPP’s campaign team’s purported decision to skip Kinmen and Matsu, despite the role Tsai played in the opening of the “small three links” with China under former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration in January 2001.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Do we need a Canadian CIA?

2011-11-21T15:50:00.003+08:00

The Harper government shouldn't spend money on foreign intelligence if it doesn't plan to heed it

At a time when Ottawa is instructing federal agencies to trim their budgets, the Conservative government is reportedly contemplating expanding the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's mandate to allow it to engage in intelligence collection abroad, a measure that would signify additional costs and whose returns are by no means certain.

At the heart of the problem lies Section 16 of the CSIS Act, which contains a clause — "within Canada" — that has long cast a shadow on the agency's ability to operate abroad. The government wants to do away with that constraint, arguing that new imperatives, such as international terrorism and Chinese espionage, require that CSIS have the same powers to spy on people abroad as it does within Canada.

Now, it is an ill-kept secret that, thanks to built-in flexibility in the mandate, CSIS is already conducting operations abroad, sometimes in some of the world's most dangerous places. What a revamped mandate would signify is that CSIS would be able to engage in more such activities, or feel less like a criminal when it does so. Arguably, such intensification in espionage abroad would imply additional costs related to training and deployment, among others, which goes counter to the government's budget cuts plan. What this would create, in fact, is justification for CSIS to ask for more money.

My op-ed, published today in the Ottawa Citizen, continues here.

Funding for observers allegedly delayed

2011-11-19T08:10:00.002+08:00

The decision has fueled speculation that the Ma administration is nervous about the outcome of the elections and does not want to lose face in the presence of foreign observers

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has allegedly postponed all funding for groups of international academics who had applied to come to Taiwan to monitor the January elections, sources said yesterday.

In one case, a group of four academics from Australia that obtained approval more than a month ago was informed by officials at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canberra on Thursday that the grant would be postponed until late January, meaning that it would be made available only after the elections.

For that delegation, funding was to cover accommodation for four nights and five days through the Jan. 14 elections, as well as airfares. The members of the delegation were informed about the decision in writing.

According to one source knowledgeable of the affair, the decision came from “high up” at the ministry and “all delegations,” including those from the US and Europe, were also reportedly informed that funding deals were postponed.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Strange structures in Gobi perplex China-watchers

2011-11-17T00:10:00.007+08:00

Experts are struggling to explain the purpose of a series of large structures in the Gobi desert, but all the evidence points towards bombing practice sites

Unidentified structures spotted by satellites on the borders of Xinjiang and Gansu Province, China, and posted on the Google Earth Internet service recently are giving rise to speculation about possible military activity, reports say.

The vast structures, all situated in parts of the Gobi used by China for its military, nuclear and space programs, have puzzled analysts. The imagery also leaves unanswered questions over whether the structures are dug in or painted.

Some of the sites observed are situated less than 160km from Jiuquan, where China’s space program and its launchpads are located. The Ding Xin military airbase, where China is believed to conduct classified aircraft tests, is 640km from some of the sites.

One picture taken in 2007 shows an aggregate of orange blocks the size of shipping containers arranged in a circle, with three military aircraft occupying the center. A more recent satellite sweep of the area shows the blocks scattered as far as 4.8km from the site.

Another image shows a series of metallic squares littered with what appears to be the debris of exploded vehicles, lending credibility to claims that some of the structures are used for gunnery or airstrike practice. Other structures consist of kilometers-long grids.

With the Lop Nur nuclear test site located about 600km away from some of the structures, some experts have suggested the latter could be optical test ranges for missiles simulating the street grids of cities, with some speculating that this could be a replica of a Washington street layout. Others posit that the grids could be used for satellite calibration.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

‘Ditch Taiwan’ camp hits new low

2011-11-15T00:08:00.003+08:00

A virtual unknown somehow managed to place what can only be called a mediocre op-ed calling for the abandonment of Taiwan in the journal of record in the US

Calls by what remains a small number of voices in the US academic community for Washington to “ditch” Taiwan for the sake of better relations with China reached a new low last week with the publication of an opinion piece in the New York Times by Paul Kane, a former international security fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Earlier this year, a handful of articles were published in journals, including Foreign Affairs, making the case that realist US foreign policy required the abandonment of Taiwan to clear the way for a full relationship with China in difficult economic times. Reactions to those pieces then showed beyond doubt that the arguments advanced by those academics failed on several grounds, including moral.

As this newspaper argued in response to the previous articles, the 23 million people who inhabit this nation are not mere commodities who can be traded by larger nations on a diplomatic chessboard. Not only is the commodification of human beings morally bankrupt, it is also a recipe for disaster, as the subjects — treated as pawns in the machinations of great power politics — are unlikely to regard such decisions with equanimity.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

New US defense body could focus on Chinese threat

2011-11-14T00:26:00.003+08:00

News of the new office comes as US President Obama is expected to announce the deployment of US Marines to a base in Australia

The US Department of Defense last week announced the creation of a tri-service Air-Sea Battle Office (ASBO) that, according to defense analysts, is directed mostly at the Western Pacific and its principal actor, China.

The new office, which was created on Aug. 12, but whose existence was only confirmed in a press release on Wednesday, integrates the US Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps and will develop a “comprehensive concept to counter emerging anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) challenges.”

One Pentagon official has described the office as a “highly classified clearinghouse set up to consider a wide range of current and potential threats.”

The ASB concept will guide the services to ensure continued US advantage against the global proliferation of advanced military technology and A2/AD capabilities, Marine Corps News reported on Friday.

The tri--service collaboration will “leverage military and technological capabilities that reflect unprecedented Navy, Marine and Air Force collaboration, cooperation, integration and resource investments,” it said.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Taiwan gun group joins global fight to bear arms

2011-10-25T00:18:00.002+08:00

The organization has a goal to see 8 million people in Taiwan own a gun and 5 million people obtain a license to carry concealed firearms

The Taiwan Defensive Firearms Association (TDFA) earlier this month became a member of the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR), a global gun rights association working to protect and expand the ability to keep and bear arms around the globe.

In a press release, IAPCAR said the TDFA was joining 16 other groups from nine countries on five continents that represent millions of firearm owners and citizens concerned about civilian gun rights.

“The IAPCAR coalition defending gun rights worldwide continues to grow and we are proud to have Taiwan join with us,” IAPCAR executive director Philip Watson is quoted as saying.

“The Taiwan Defensive Firearms Association is an important addition in our battle to protect the human right of self-defense,” Watson said.

The TDFA is reported to be Taiwan’s highest profile gun advocacy association, which according to its Web site opened its office in Taipei in May last year, with Boris Yang acting as chairman.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Making Taiwan an end in itself

2011-10-25T00:06:00.006+08:00

China has had plenty of opportunities to learn from democracies in the past decades, and yet remains authoritarian. The idea that contact with Taiwan will yield different results is a mistaken one

Despite the occasional suggestion by a handful of US academics that Washington should “abandon” Taiwan to its “inevitable” fate of unification with China, a good number of experts and officials maintain that the nation of 23 million cannot simply be willed out of existence and must therefore be dealt with.

Welcome though this defense of Taiwan may be, a surprisingly large number of such proponents, often in the same breath, add that democratic Taiwan is useful because it serves as an example for China, encouraging the incremental democratization and liberalization of the authoritarian giant next door.

Using terminology like “the first Chinese democracy,” such individuals fail to recognize that Taiwan is a distinct entity unto itself, or that the existence of its 23 million people is more than a means to an end.

Although qualitatively better than the argument that Taiwan should be forsaken by its allies and protectors for the sake of better relations with Beijing, the case that the nation is “useful” because it can foster change in China fails on moral grounds.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Interview: Wolfowitz praises Taiwan’s democratic legacy

2011-10-24T00:02:00.006+08:00

Former US deputy secretary of defense and current US-Taiwan Business Council chairman Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, sat down with me in Taipei on Saturday night to discuss US arms sales, the future of Taiwan and cross-strait relations

Taipei Times (TT): What brings you to Taiwan this time around?

Paul Wolfowitz (PW): Every year or so, we [the US-Taiwan Business Council] get out here to meet officials and get a reading of the state of things. With the political competition as intense as it is, we felt it would be interesting to get a feel for that.

I’d like to come back in January and actually see what the election is like. If you think about it, this [will be] only the fifth democratic election in Chinese history. It’s still not something to take for granted and I think what’s happening here is important for China.

It’s commonly said in American policy discourse that Taiwan is an obstacle in US-China relations — and I know what this means — but I think it’s wrong not to recognize this as an opportunity. One of the things that struck me is how many people I met in the last few days who said the Chinese tourists who come here spend a lot of time in their hotel rooms watching Taiwanese talk shows. The fact that this can happen is a relatively good thing.

One has to give a little bit of credit to the regime on the mainland, which I am not known for giving enormous amount of credit to, for they’re willing to let this happen by the millions. I do think there is recognition that there has to be change to their system over time. The long-term trend is that developments here can be educational to China.

My Q&A with Wolfowitz, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here. This article does not include other topics discussed during the hour-long interview, such as revolution in the Arab world and the invasion of Iraq. Wendell Minnick of Defense News will have a report on the same interview on the DN Web site later today.

Deterrence key to curbing China, report says

2011-10-19T00:07:00.004+08:00

The greatest deterrent of all, the authors argue, are the historically unparalleled economic consequences that would result from a Sino-American conflict

Armed conflict between the US and China during the next 20 years is improbable, provided Washington retains the capacity to deter behavior that would lead to such a clash, a US think tank says in a new report.

In an occasional paper titled Conflict with China: Prospects, Consequences and Strategies for Deterrence prepared by RAND Corp for the US Army, the authors say China’s security interests and military capabilities for the next two decades are expected to remain focused on its immediate periphery, with conflict likeliest to occur over Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, one or more countries in Southeast Asia or India.

“China is seeking neither territorial aggrandizement nor ideological sway over its neighbors,” the report says. “It shows no interest in matching US military expenditures, achieving a comparable global reach or assuming defense commitments beyond its immediate periphery.”

While such intentions could change, the US would probably receive considerable warning of such a shift, given the lead time needed to develop the capabilities needed for a new strategy that would seek to alter China’s current emphasis on regional contingencies.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Basic Education Act forces silence on school campuses

2011-10-18T00:02:00.005+08:00

Though far from desirable, regulations banning political activity on campuses ahead of elections are the result of Taiwan’s idiosyncratic history. Strangely enough, they are also the lesser of two evils

With the January elections approaching, the nation’s universities received a reminder from the Ministry of Education earlier this month that campuses must respect certain rules regarding political activity to ensure neutrality.

For academics and rights activists who look at the regulations from a strictly Western, liberal perspective, the limitations imposed on campus might sound like echoes of the nation’s authoritarian past — and they do — but not necessarily for the reasons that immediately come to mind.

First, let’s take a look at the restrictions contained in Article 6 of the Basic Education Act (教育基本法), which lays out the principles about “educational neutrality” and reinforces the need for “peace and quiet” from learning environments during elections.

Under the rules, schools may not help spread word or beliefs of particular political parties and organizations in charge of administrative functions cannot force administrative personnel, teachers or students to participate in any activities held by political (or religious) parties.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here. Below is a transcription of the MOE letter sent to National Sun Yat-Sen University on Oct. 6, provided to me by a source.

檔　　號：
保存年限：
教育部　函
地址：10051臺北市中正區中山南路5號
傳　真：(02)23977022
聯絡人：丁士芳
電　話：(02)77365938

受文者：國立中山大學

發文日期：中華民國100年10月6日
發文字號：臺人(二)字第1000179520號
速別：最速件
密等及解密條件或保密期限：
附件：無附件

裝
主旨：各項公職人員競選活動期間，請確實遵照教育基本法第6

條揭櫫之教育中立原則，加強維護選舉期間校園學習環境
安寧，並依說明事項配合辦理，請　查照。

說明：
一、查教育基本法第6條規定：「教育應本中立原則。學校不
得為特定政治團體或宗教信仰從事宣傳，主管教育行政機
關及學校亦不得強迫學校行政人員、教師及學生參加任何
政治團體或宗教活動。」。
二、請利用學校各種集會及相關教學機會，向教職員工生宣導
民主法治及淨化選舉風氣之理念。另各項公職人員競選活
動期間，請確實遵照教育基本法第6條揭櫫之教育中立原
則，學校教職員工生不得從事下列活動：
(一)邀請候選人至學校演講、座談及其他助選造勢活動。
(二)為候選人在校園內張貼、散發海報、標語或傳單等競選
物品。
(三)教職員工生亦不得於上班或勤務時間，從事政黨或其他
政治團體之活動；亦不得從事助選活動。下班後從事上
開活動，亦應自我克制。
(四)其他有違教育中立及影響校園學習環境安寧之助選活動
。
三、前項所稱「公職人員競選活動期間」係依公職人員選舉罷
免法及其施行細則等相關規定，由主管選舉委員會規定之
。
正本：各直轄市政府教育局、桃園縣政府教育局及各縣市政府、各公私立大專校院、
本部中部辦公室
副本：本部各單位(不含中部辦公室)
100/10/06
電子公文
16:35:33
交換章
裝

Philippines airs concerns over Taiwanese missile plan

2011-10-17T00:09:00.002+08:00

Washington also weighed in on Friday, cautioning all claimants to the disputed islets to avoid sparking an arms race and to resolve the disputes in accordance with international law

A Philippine military spokesman yesterday said alleged plans by the Taiwanese military to deploy surface-to-air missiles on Taiping Island (太平島) in the South China Sea could fuel tensions in the region and be seen as an act of aggression by other claimants to a series of disputed islets.

Calling the move “unsettling” and “uncalled for,” Philippine Defense Department spokesman Zosimo Paredes said how other countries in the region would react to what he saw as an “out of the ordinary” move by Taiwan remained to be seen.

Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) on Wednesday gave signs he supported a proposal by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to deploy the Air Force’s Antelope air defense system — a derivative of the indigenous Tien Chien I “Sky Sword” (天劍一, TC-1) air-to-air missile used on the CK-1 Indigenous Defense Fighter — or the US-made M48A2 “Chaparral” on Taiping.

Paredes, who said Manila was prepared to “defend to the hilt” islets it already occupied in the Spratly Islands (南沙群島), nevertheless attempted to play down the significance of the news.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Retired officers’ visits to China part of united front efforts

2011-10-17T00:02:00.004+08:00

Not only are retired Taiwanese generals part of the program, but China has also begun inviting former intelligence officers

A new study on the rising number of retired senior Taiwanese military officers who visit China concludes that retired officials of “mainland” heritage represent the constituency in Taiwan most likely to support unification and could serve as willing conduits for Chinese propaganda intended to manipulate public perceptions in Taiwan.

“Retired Taiwanese military officers have visited China in an individual capacity for many years,” writes John Dotson, a research coordinator on the staff of the congressionally mandated US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in the latest issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief.

“More organized exchanges between retired Chinese and Taiwanese flag officers — initiated primarily from the Chinese side — have expanded significantly in scale since 2009, he adds.

Although the Ministry of National Defense says it does not authorize such visits, it has done nothing to curb the practice, which has raised concerns among US defense officials over the potential for leaks of sensitive military information or the creation of a back channel for secret negotiations.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

NTU drops ‘national’ when cooperating with China

2011-10-14T00:05:00.003+08:00

Aside from the name change, a list of visiting scholars at the department of humanities and social sciences shows that of the 52 foreign academics taken in this year, 46 are from China

Almost every department at National Taiwan University (NTU), the nation’s top academic institution, is dropping the “N” from the school’s initials when it holds joint conferences with Chinese schools or cooperates on academic work, sources said yesterday.

The practice, described as “university-wide,” began more than a year ago, a source at the university told the Taipei Times on condition of anonymity, referring to official documents on conferences and panels held with Chinese universities.

According to another academic at the school who was also in a position to see the documents, the removal of the “N” in the university’s official initials — a source of pride for many Taiwanese — applied to “a lot of, if not all departments” involved in exchanges with China. However, it has yet to be determined whether the practice is now official policy at the university or was initiated by department heads or individual academics.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Antelope air defense systems on Taiping Island?

2011-10-12T20:43:00.005+08:00

The plan is a sound one, except that its proponent fails to mention the most belligerent and powerful protagonist in the dispute

Rarely a week goes by where Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee does not propose the development, or deployment, of a new weapon system.

While a good number of the proposals he has made over the years never saw the light of day, and although Lin has a long history of voting according to the direction of the prevailing political winds, he raised some interesting points in the legislature today that warrant further consideration.

During a Q&A with Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱), Lin said the military had an obligation to assist the Coast Guard Administration (COA) in defending islets in the South China Sea that are the object of a longstanding dispute between Taiwan and other claimants.*

One of those islands is Taiping Island (太平島), which is administered by Taiwan and is also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and China. Taiwan completed a 1,150m airstrip on the islet in 2008 under the Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) administration.

Saying that the 20mm and 40mm machineguns used by the CGA on Taiping were insufficient, Lin asked Kao whether the military could augment defenses by deploying either the Air Force’s Antelope air defense system — a derivative of the indigenous Tien Chien I “Sky Sword” (天劍一, TC-1) air-to-air missile used on the CK-1 Indigenous Defense Fighter — or the US-made (and ageing) M48A2 “Chaparral.”

Kao said such deployments were feasible, provided a request by the CGA was made and the appropriate funds released.

Where things get really interesting, however, is not so much what Lin said to sell the idea, but rather what he didn’t say.

Vietnam, Lin said, has 27,000 marine personnel, and the Philippines have 8,300, adding that in two to three years, Vietnam’s fleet of Su-27SK and Su-30MK2 combat aircraft could expand to as much as 36. Those pose a serious threat to the country’s defense arrangements on Taiping Island, Lin said.

So here we are. Not once did Lin (or Kao) mention the other claimant to the disputed islands, the one that has been the most belligerent and whose military within the same timeframe will be more formidable by orders of magnitude than that of Vietnam of the Philippines: China.

I leave it to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions from this, and will only add that Chinese officials, as well as a good number of academics on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, have in recent months called for the joint defense of the Spratlys and other contested islands in the South China Sea.

*The Marines pulled out in 1999, ceding responsibility to the CGA.

Former US defense chief Rumsfeld lauds Taiwan

2011-10-12T00:14:00.003+08:00

In town to attend the Republic of China 100 celebrations, the indefatigable career government official shared his views on the challenges and opportunities facing the region

Taiwan is a model for Asia and more specifically for China, a former US secretary of defense said during a keynote speech in Taipei yesterday, calling on Washington to sign a free-trade agreement (FTA) with its Asian ally.

In Taiwan to attend the Republic of China centenary celebrations, former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld was invited by the Prospect Foundation, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-affiliated think tank, to share his views on future challenges in Asia.

The sprightly 79-year-old, who stepped down as former US president George W. Bush’s defense chief in 2006, said the US supported a peaceful resolution to differences across the Taiwan Strait and that progress in that direction in recent years was welcome.

“A stable and secure relationship between Taiwan and the mainland [China] is good for both parties, for the region and for the US,” said the career government official, who first visited Taiwan in 1969.

Despite those developments, Rumsfeld said, progress was likely to continue only if both parties recognized that armed conflict was an unacceptable option, which meant Taiwan should maintain its defense and expand ties with regional allies.

My coverage of Rumsfeld's luncheon address in Taipei continues here.

Kurt Campbell faces heat in Beijing

2011-10-12T00:03:00.003+08:00

Prior to lecturing the visiting diplomat, a Chinese official seemed to indicate that Beijing did not want its expression of anger on arms sales to Taiwan to sour the overall mood for the talks

US arms sales to Taiwan were one of the main topics raised by China during a visit to Beijing yesterday by US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell.

The meeting was part of a second series of talks on Asia-Pacific affairs to boost bilateral communication and address regional and global issues, co-chaired by Campbell, who is currently visiting the region, and Chinese Vice Deputy Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai (崔天凱).

Cui said US arms sales to Taiwan jeopardized China’s core interests and Sino-US relations and constituted a disruption in the course of the “peaceful development” in the Taiwan Strait.

Such sales will be harmful to US interests in the long term, he said, adding that he hoped Washington would not become involved in any further arms sales to Taiwan, the state-owned Global Times reported last night.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

PLA Air Force denies news of advanced fighter crash

2011-10-11T00:13:00.003+08:00

The State Internet Information Office has ordered that the individual who published the 'fake' news and the Web site that carried it be punished according to the law

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) on Sunday denied rumors that one of its experimental fighter aircraft had crashed during a test flight in Shaanxi Province after Hong Kong and Taiwanese media reported the news.

The reports said that an all-weather, single engine J-10B multirole fighter aircraft had crashed at the China Flight Test Establishment in Xianyang, Xi'an, adding that the pilot was killed in the accident as he attempted to save the aircraft.

Chinese officials said no aircraft had crashed and that no pilot had been killed, calling the story pure fabrication and adding that the rumor had been traced back to the personal blog of a worker in Beijing, the People’s Daily said yesterday.

The Global Times said the allegations first emerged in a sina.com microblog post on Friday and had been picked up by the Hong Kong-based Sing Tao, which ran a story on Saturday. The report was widely circulated and was eventually picked up by Taiwanese media, the PLAAF said.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Beijing’s nuclear sleight of hand

2011-10-11T00:07:00.004+08:00

Negotiators in Washington, Moscow and at the UN should be aware that once parity approaches, Beijing could prove much less willing to abandon its own nuclear ambitions

Officially, Beijing’s position on nuclear weapons is one of complete and thorough disarmament globally. This view was reaffirmed by Wang Qun (王群), China’s disarmament ambassador to the UN at the UN General Assembly on Friday.

Wang said nuclear disarmament should be based on the principle of global strategic stability and involve a “viable long-term plan” composed of “phased actions.” Meanwhile, Beijing has voiced support for efforts by Washington and Moscow to reduce their nuclear stockpiles to between 1,500 and 1,675 warheads each as part of a successor to the START treaty.

While it is difficult to disagree with calls for nuclear abolition along a moral line — current stockpiles, albeit reduced, are still enough to blow us out of existence many times over — Beijing’s enthusiasm on the matter is far less humanistic than it would like us to believe.

Key for China, as stated by Wang, is strategic stability, which at present it does not enjoy. Despite the impressive modernization of its military, China’s estimated 200 nuclear warheads are insufficient to deter rivals such as the US or Russia, whose arsenals remain in the thousands. Beijing is aware that a country that seeks to become the dominant power regionally, if not globally, cannot hope to freely flex its muscles with a nuclear component about the size of the UK’s.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Thoughts on the ROC’s 100th

2011-10-10T22:54:00.003+08:00

For the good and the bad, the ROC is an intrinsic part of Taiwan’s complex history. Ignoring its impact on modern Taiwan, and vice versa, would be intellectually dishonest

Celebrations were held across Taiwan today for the Republic of China (ROC) centennial, with hundreds of foreign dignitaries attending a military parade and various colorful performances in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei.

It is perhaps testimony to the complexity of the political situation facing Taiwan that several people, including some publications abroad, would refer to the Double Ten festivities as Taiwan’s 100th anniversary. It is one thing to say that the ROC equals Taiwan — and in the public mind, or for foreign consumption, this simplification is arguably acceptable. However, to say that Oct. 10, 2011, marks Taiwan’s 100th anniversary is historically inaccurate, as Taiwan existed well before Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) and his followers put an end to dynastic rule in China with the Xinhai Revolution in 1911.

At the time, Taiwan was part of the Japanese empire, and had been so since 1895 following the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the first Sino-Japanese war. Prior to 1895, Taiwan, though on the peripheries of the Chinese empire, was not officially or legally part of it, despite revisionist claims to the contrary by Beijing.

And while it can be said that Sun’s dream came to fruition in Taiwan, no person living in Taiwan at the time of the ROC’s founding participated in the rebellion or in drafting the articles of the Republic. It should also be said that, as envisioned by Sun, the ROC was terribly flawed and less than an ideal democracy, with its founder making no secret of his opposition to the emergence of any organized political party other than the KMT.

A truly democratic ROC only emerged decades after the Republic had imposed itself upon Taiwan, and only from that point on could it be said that Taiwanese became participants in the ROC experiment. Nevertheless, without the ROC and despite the colonial — and oppressive — nature of its arrival in Taiwan, chances are that Taiwan today would be a province of the People’s Republic of China, run by an authoritarian regime that continues to make a travesty of the more noble ideas propounded by Sun.

Exogenous nature of the ROC notwithstanding, it cannot be denied that Taiwan would not be what it is today without the ROC, just as the US, Canada or Australia wouldn’t be where they are without the British colonial experience, which, for good and bad, was, and always will be, a key ingredient to the modern countries as we know them today. As such, despite the 228 Massacre and the White Terror that followed the arrival of the KMT on Taiwan, one cannot dissociate the ROC as a formative component from Taiwan, nor should that aspect of Taiwan’s history be ignored. There is nothing wrong in celebrating the ROC — a transformed, localized ROC that now stands for Taiwan —, nor does doing so signify one’s abandonment of the conviction that Taiwan is an independent country. In fact, ignoring the ROC would be to ignore a very significant, and in fact intrinsic, aspect of Taiwan’s modern history.

One therefore need not be ashamed to wish the ROC a happy 100th anniversary, nor does doing so by any means signify support for unification with China.

India claims PLA presence in Pakistan-controlled territory

2011-10-09T16:40:00.003+08:00

Non-military and government sources say the publication of comments by senior military officers is timed to sabotage diplomatic efforts between New Delhi and Beijing

Indian Army chief General V K Singh claimed on 5 October that People's Liberation Army (PLA) combat engineers are present among 4,000 Chinese construction workers in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

My article, published on Oct. 7 in Jane's Defence Weekly, continues here (subscription required).

More Chinese espionage, this time against Russia

2011-10-07T02:29:00.004+08:00

Analysts tend to focus on Chinese espionage against its traditional adversaries, such as the US and Taiwan. But Beijing is increasingly stealing military secrets from its ally Russia, and now Moscow may be pushing back

Back in May I reported that China had allegedly stolen the design of the Russian-made 9K720 Iskander (SS-26 Stone)* short-range ballistic missile for its M20, adding that this followed upon repeated accusations by Russian defense firms in recent years that China was stealing Russian technology for military purposes.

It’s an open secret that in recent years relations between China and Russia, Beijing’s principal source of advanced weapons systems in recent decades, have soured, with Moscow becoming reluctant to sell Beijing its most advanced weapons. Part of this is the result of Moscow growing increasingly wary of China’s intentions as it gains strength, as well as Russian manufacturers’ inability to produce enough systems to satisfy the demand of both the Russian and Chinese militaries.

What is also troubling the relationship is growing evidence that China has been stealing military secrets from Russia and using that information to manufacture its own equivalents — only to turn those into cheaper export versions that threaten to edge Russian foreign military sales out of the market.

It now looks like China’s been at it again, this time trying to obtain classified information on the S-300PMU (SA-10 “Grumble”) long-range, high-altitude surface-to-air missile system. Although the arrest occurred on Oct. 28 last year, the Federal Security Service only made the news public this week, occurring as it does one week before Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin embarks on a state visit to China.

The suspect, identified as Tun Sheniyun (童中雲), allegedly worked as a translator for official delegations. Tun is said to have attempted to obtain technological and maintenance documents on the S-300PMU. He now faces a sentence of 10 to 20 years in jail for espionage.

Russia has sold S-300PMU, S-300PMU-1 (SA-20 “Gargoyle”) and S-300PMU-2 (SA-20B) units to China since 1993. China also manufactures a licensed copy of the S-300PMU-1 known as the HQ-10. The slightly less efficient HQ-9, of which China has an estimated 60 batteries, is a derivative of the S-300 and the US Patriot. (A variant of the HQ-9, known as the “Hai” HQ-9, or HHQ-9, is deployed on the PLA Navy’s Type-052C “Luyang II”-class destroyer.)

So why “steal” documentation when China already has the technology? Moscow claims China has been attempting to reverse-engineer the S-300 but that it may have hit a bottleneck and is trying to expedite the process by stealing extra documentation. What’s missing from the reports so far is that what Tun was likely trying to obtain was information on the S-300PMU-2, which is more advanced and has a longer range than the S-300/PMU-1 and the HQ-9/10.

* NATO appellation in parentheses

Retired USAF officials back F-16 sale

2011-10-06T00:14:00.003+08:00

Officials in and out of government continue to put pressure on the Obama administration to release the F-16C/Ds for Taiwan

Seven senior retired US Air Force (USAF) officials on Tuesday sent a letter to US senators John Cornyn and Robert Menendez in support of a bill to upgrade Taiwan’s airpower and in favor of selling Taiwan the 66 F-16C/D aircraft it has been requesting since 2006.

In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Taipei Times, the signatories expressed “strong support” for bill S. 1539, Taiwan Airpower Modernization Act of 2011, introduced by the senators on Sept. 12.

The letter, signed by Lieutenant General David Deptula, Lieutenant General Michael Dunn, General John Loh, General William Looney III, General Lester Lyles, General Lloyd Newton and former secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne, was issued to coincide with the “Why Taiwan Matters” hearings at the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs the same day.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Wu Chang-yu: A classic Chinese intelligence operation

2011-10-04T18:36:00.005+08:00

The case of a Central Police University associate professor who was arrested for spying for China follows a pattern that is strangely familiar

Central Police University associate professor Wu Chang-yu (吳彰裕) was arrested last week for providing China’s Ministry of Public Security with information on the movement of Chinese dissidents in Taiwan.

According to investigators, Wu ordered Lin Bo-hong (林柏宏), a section supervisor, and Wu Dong-lin (吳東霖), an officer at the Hsinchu County police bureau’s international affairs office, to collect the entry and exit records of targeted individuals, which reportedly included Falun Gong practitioners and democracy activists. Lin and Wu Dong-lin are former students of Wu Chang-yu who, interestingly, also happens to be a feng shui master and was a fortuneteller to both former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). (Ma has named Wu one of Taiwan’s three “national fortunetellers.”)

Wu’s recruitment by the Chinese intelligence apparatus followed the usual script. Wu reportedly went to China on an academic exchange in 2008. After his return to Taiwan, the MPS reportedly contacted him and asked that he provide them with customs data and information on the movement of persons of interest. If previous cases of recruitment serve as any indication, Wu, who is also a visiting professor in religion at several Chinese universities, including Sichuan University and Xiamen University, would have been approached — and recruited — while in China. Sources have told the Chinese-language United Daily News that Wu made frequent visits to China and that he had been offered fortunetelling business opportunities in China in exchange for providing information to the MPS.

As with previous cases of sources working for Chinese intelligence, Wu claims he is innocent and that the information he passed on to the Chinese was purely academic. “The data is just for the research of Chinese academic institutions without any intention on my part of leaking national secrets,” he told Taiwanese investigators, who learned of his leaks to China from his notebooks.

This follows the pattern set by individuals such as Peter Lee, Min Guo-bao, Lee Wen-ho (李文和) and several others, all academics who ran afoul of the FBI in recent decades for providing Chinese intelligence with military secrets for the sake of academic exchange. Wu, a PhD in politics, didn’t pass on military secrets, but what he gave the MPS concerns public security — especially when Chinese law regards Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, pro-democracy activists and Chinese dissidents as criminals and “terrorists.”

While drafting a joint cross-strait crime-fighting agreement (officially known as the Agreement on Jointly Cracking Down on Crime and Mutual Legal Assistance Across the Strait, 海峽兩岸共同打擊犯罪及司法互助協議), Taiwanese and Chinese law enforcement authorities ran into disagreements over the definition of such activities, with Taipei refusing to cooperate (such as providing lists of individuals) when Beijing requested information on “terrorist” and “separatist” suspects.

Unable to secure Taipei’s help, the MPS simply turned to willing individuals like Wu and his accomplices.

China deploys HQ-16A air defence missile

2011-10-04T01:19:00.005+08:00

If deployed closer to Taiwan, the new medium-range, vertical launch air defense system could be used against the low-flying Hsiung Feng IIE cruise missile Taiwan is now mass-producing

The People's Liberation Army Daily confirmed in late September that a new medium-range surface-to-air missile system has become fully operational and been delivered to the Shenyang Military Region.

According to reports, the vertical-launch Hongqi-16A ('Red Flag-16'/HQ-16A/紅旗-16A) air defence missile system can engage aerial targets at altitudes up to 30,000 m as well as very-low-flying targets, including land attack cruise missiles (LACMs), within a range of approximately 40 km.

My article, published today in Jane's Defence Weekly, continues here (subscription required).

PRC delegation calls for closer media cooperation

2011-10-04T00:10:00.003+08:00

Just as a Chinese delegate said media exchanges should be objective, impartial, comprehensive and accurate, back in Beijing the government was moving in the opposite direction

Media outlets on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should enhance exchanges and cooperation in an effort to reduce differences, the head of a Chinese media delegation said upon concluding an eight-day visit to Taiwan.

Zhou Xisheng (周錫生, pictured), the head of the delegation and vice president of Xinhua news agency, told a farewell dinner on Thursday that the eight-day “exchange tour” was an effort to encourage “frank communication” and in-depth exchanges on the media and the impact of social media on traditional mass communication.

Only by strengthening cross-strait media exchanges can differences be reduced and avoided, the friendship deepened and cooperation expanded, Zhou said, adding that he welcomed colleagues in Taiwanese media to visit China more often and engage in more direct communication and cooperation.

“Whether in the streets all over Taiwan, or a visit to the National Palace Museum … reading newspapers or watching TV, we can deeply feel that the feelings of compatriots on both sides are thicker than water, and feel the Chinese nation’s long and splendid culture,” he said.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

New era of Chinese spying dawns

2011-10-04T00:01:00.002+08:00

The influx of Chinese tourists, investors, officials and academics in Taiwan is making it much easier for the Chinese intelligence apparatus to collect its 1,000 grains of sand

Lamentable though it may be, news last week that Central Police University associate professor Wu Chang-yu (吳彰裕, pictured) had been taken in on suspicion of passing information about dissidents to China was not shocking. However, this incident did bring into sharp contrast the dawn of a new era of Chinese “espionage” in Taiwan.

There is nothing new to espionage operations by China targeting the Taiwanese military, security apparatus, political parties and high-tech sector. Over the years, a number of Taiwanese have been caught spying for Beijing. The arrest and sentencing this year of General Lo Hsien-che (羅賢哲) for providing military secrets to China is but the latest and most prominent case in a long series of spy operations.

While it is difficult to gauge the severity of Chinese spy activity targeting Taiwan, as we only know of the cases where an agent was caught, it is safe to assume it is serious.

What is now changing — and Wu’s arrest could be the opening shot — is the context in which Chinese espionage is occurring. From 1949 until the beginning of the 21st century, China had limited opportunities to conduct human intelligence gathering on Taiwan.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Chinese analyst calls for war in South China Sea

2011-09-30T00:33:00.005+08:00

Beijing should strike the Philippines and Vietnam, the two ‘noisiest troublemakers,’ to strike fear into other claimants, a Chinese academic argues in the influential ‘Huanqiu Shibao’

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday reaffirmed Taiwan’s sovereignty over disputed islands in the South China Sea and called on all claimants to peacefully resolve the impasse.

The comments came after an editorial published in the Chinese-language edition of the Chinese Communist Party-run Global Times called on the Beijing government to declare war on Vietnam and the Philippines, two countries that have been proactive in defending their claims over the islets.

The op-ed, titled “A good time to take military action in the South China Sea,” was penned by Long Tao (龍韜), a strategic analyst at the non-governmental China Energy Fund Committee (CEFC, 中华能源基金委员会) and also at Zhejiang University’s Non-Traditional Security and Peace Development Research Center.

“Do not worry about small-scale wars; it is the best way to release the potential of war. Play a few small battles and big battles can be avoided,” Long wrote, adding that military action should be focused on striking the Philippines and Vietnam, “the two noisiest troublemakers,” to achieve the effect of killing one chicken to scare the monkeys.

Through military action, he wrote, China could transform the South China Sea into “a sea of fire,” an act made possible by the fact that “of the more than 1,000 oil rigs and four airfields on the Spratly Islands, none belongs to China.”

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Interesting facts about the Hong Kong-based CEFC, which also has centers in Shanghai and Beijing. According to its Web site, one of its roles is “pushing forward the notion of world peace” and “achieving international harmony and world peace,” which obviously resonates with calls to create a “sea of flames” in the South China Sea. It gets better. Aside from including former PLA officers, the consultants include James C. Hsiung, a former “instructor” to President Ma Ying-jeou at New York University, and Eric A. McVadon, retired rear admiral in the US Navy.

China unveils Z-5 unmanned helicopter

2011-09-30T00:32:00.000+08:00

Following the global trend, Beijing has been developing a number of UAVs in recent years

An advanced unmanned helicopter designated the Z-5 made its first public appearance at Aviation Expo China 2011, which ran from 21-24 September in Beijing.

The Z-5 was developed by the 60th Research Institute of the PLA Headquarters of the General Staff Department, also the maker of the Z-3 drone that was unveiled at the third China UAV Expo in June 2010. Based on images that show the Z-5 next to a Z-3, the new unmanned vehicle is about 5.4 m long, or about twice the length of the Z-3.

My article, published today in Jane's Defence Weekly, continues here (subscription required).

A case for expatriate humility [UPDATED]

2011-09-29T00:03:00.005+08:00

The intention may be noble, but the tendency to project our values and beliefs onto others whom we presume to defend often leads to resentment

The temptation, though fundamentally altruistic, to try to help others by adopting their “cause” can have the unintended consequence of inspiring resentment among those who are being “helped.” Part of that outcome derives from the condescension or “I know best” attitude often inadvertently taken by individuals who are, and always will be, external to the conflict in question.

It may come as a shock to the interventionists among us, but as David Reynolds points out in his biography of the anti-slavery activist John Brown, many African-Americans came to resent the condescension and paternalism of (white) anti-slavery organizations that hijacked the cause in abolitionist US.

The same, in my view, applies to a more contemporary cause celebre, that of Taiwan’s independence. How often have expatriates, bloggers and academics abroad made policy prescriptions for Taiwan, as if they knew more than the Taiwanese themselves, only to disconsolately shake their heads when those ideas are not lovingly embraced, or when Taiwanese appear unmoved by the repeated insults from Beijing? I myself have often been guilty of that practice, inspired no doubt by a romantic, if not Hemmingway-esque, desire to make that fight my own.

My op-ed, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here. (The picture is of pro-unification demonstrators awaiting the arrival of ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin in November 2008.) Also, my response to letters sent to the Taipei Times.

Attacks on Lee, Chen are nonsensical

2011-09-27T00:01:00.006+08:00

The belief that former presidents Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian were ‘anti China’ is more myth than reality. The contradictions in the attacks on the two leaders show us why

The only consistent thing about Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) accusations that former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) were “extremists” who opposed all things Chinese, is how inconsistent, and at times contradictory, those attacks have been.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), administration officials, as well as the media, have repeated ad nauseam the refrain that cross-strait ties “suffered” under Lee and Chen because of their stance on Taiwanese sovereignty. More than once, those officials have also claimed that Taiwan’s economy was weakened during their tenure as a direct result of their supposedly “anti-China” policies.

Is it not curious, then, that when facing accusations that Taiwan under Ma has become too reliant on China for its economic well-being, those same officials tend to play down the matter by pointing to the rapid pace of increasing cross-strait economic ties during the very same presidencies of Lee and Chen?

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

‘Taiwan independent since 1989’: Lee Kuan Yew

2011-09-26T00:11:00.003+08:00

Taiwan may be independent, but no amount of US arms sale will prevent annexation by China, because this remains an unshakeable goal for Beijing, the former leader said

Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀) made waves last week when he told a conference in Singapore that he believed Taiwan has been independent “from 1989 to the present.”

Addressing the closing dinner of the two-day Singapore Global Dialogue on Thursday evening, the 88-year-old, who stepped down from government earlier this year after a poor showing by his People’s Action Party, did not elaborate on why he had chosen 1989 as the year Taiwan became “independent.”

Some Taiwanese media have speculated that the former Singaporean prime minister may have regarded the ascension of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to the Presidential Office the previous year as a turning point.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Absent command of the air, Taiwan needs to go asymmetrical

2011-09-23T00:02:00.004+08:00

Before the announcement of a US$5.8 billion arms package on Wednesday, Taiwan already had about US$12 billion in procurement in the pipeline. Without proper air forces, however, most of those items will be next to useless, and that money could be better spent elsewhere

The decision by the administration of US President Barack Obama to deny Taiwan the F-16C/Ds it has been requesting since 2006 has implications that go well beyond Taipei’s inability to procure modern aircraft, as it raises questions about the utility of almost every other arms sale the US has agreed to in recent years.

Over the past decade, the balance of air power in the Taiwan Strait has steadily shifted in Beijing’s favor. During that period, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) launched a dramatic aircraft modernization program, with the result that it now enjoys a clear quantitative and qualitative advantage over Taiwan in air combat capabilities.

Meanwhile, the number of short and medium-range ballistic missiles the Chinese Second Artillery Corps aims at Taiwan — including its airbases and airstrips — has also increased, reaching about 1,500 this year. Consequently, the number of Taiwanese aircraft likely to survive an initial volley and be able to take off from operational airstrips has diminished.

As the 66 F-16C/Ds sought by Taipei were to replace aging F-5E/Fs, failure to acquire them means that the Taiwanese air force will find itself with fewer aircraft, a shortfall that the US$5.3 billion upgrade to Taiwan’s 145 F-16A/Bs notified to US Congress on Wednesday will not make up for, even if it includes joint direct attack munition (JDAM) laser-guided bomb kits, more powerful engines and Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar.

Taiwan can no longer hope to achieve air superiority against the hundreds of increasingly modern aircraft that have been added to the PLAAF in recent years.

My op-ed, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

F-16 upgrade package impressive, but falls short

2011-09-22T16:40:00.005+08:00

On paper, the arms package announced on Wednesday is eye-catching, but even its more surprising elements fail to meet the special requirements for warfare in the Taiwan Strait

The US on Wednesday ended months of speculation after Congress was notified of a US$5.8 billion arms sale to Taiwan. Unsurprisingly, as I and several other defense analysts and journalists had been reporting for a while, the 66 F-16C/Ds that Taipei was hoping to acquire were not part of the package.

So how does the sale, which centers on upgrading Taiwan’s existing fleet of 145 F-16A/Bs, affect the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait? Does Taiwan get enough bang for the buck?

At first sight, the upgrade package is pretty impressive and includes some items that surprised quite a few analysts. It confirms, among other things, that Taiwan will be getting Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar — either Raytheon Corp’s Raytheon Advanced Combat Radar (RACR), or Northrop Grumman Corp’s Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR).

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) also for the first time released GBU-31 and GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) laser-guided bombs, which the US had hitherto denied Taiwan, given their offensive nature. The GBU-54 laser-guided JDAM, the GBU-10 Enhanced PAVEWAY II and GBU-24 Enhanced PAVEWAY III are also reportedly options for Taiwan.

Added to CBU-105 Sensor Fused Weapons, AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, Embedded Global Positioning System Inertial Navigation Systems, the Terma ALQ-213 Electronic Warfare Management System and helmet-mounted cueing systems, the upgrade is pretty muscular.

But does it meet Taiwan’s defense needs?

In an op-ed published on Friday in the Taipei Times (above post), I address the issue of qualitative and quantitative imperatives for Taiwan’s air force and will not repeat this here. Suffice it to say that even if Taiwan had the most modern aircraft in the world, if that limited number of vehicles, as well as landing strips, cannot withstand the initial missile volley that China would likely commence military operations with, those would be of no use whatsoever.

That said, supporters of the deal could argue that the upgrade, which is to be implemented over a period of 12 years, provides the Taiwanese air force with offensive capabilities. With a range of about 500 miles, its F-16s, now equipped with 500-lb JDAMs, could attack targets inside China, including missile bases, command-and-control centers, as well as airstrips.

Two factors put that assertion into doubt, however. For one, Taiwan will not initiate military operations against China, meaning that the initiative will be with the People’s Liberation Army. As mentioned above, this would likely start with missile attacks against Taiwan’s C4I centers and airbases. In that opening shot alone, Taiwan can expect to lose a good deal of its air force, or to be unable to use it for lack of operational airstrips (China has been working on bomblets specifically designed to damage airstrips).

Secondly, China’s AAA and SAM architecture being what it is, any effort by Taiwanese aircraft to venture into Chinese airspace on a bombing run would be tantamount to suicide, as those aircraft would likely be shot down before they can unload their bombs against Chinese targets (the GBU-31 has a range of 28km).* In fact, some of China’s most advanced surface-to-air missiles already pose a threat to Taiwanese aircraft immediately after takeoff.

What this means, therefore, is that while the US for the first time agreed to release “offensive” weapons to Taiwan, those will only be usable in a defensive scenario — that is, against Chinese ground forces close to, or already on, Taiwan. Consequently, their deterrent value, if not their utility, is for all intents and purposes negated.

* A better option, still unavailable to Taiwan, would be the High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) , such as the AGM-88, which has a range of 106km. HARMs would allow Taiwanese aircraft to attack Chinese targets from a much safer distance.

More information on China’s second icebreaker emerges

2011-09-22T10:04:00.000+08:00

It nay not own a single centimeter of land in the Arctic, but China is developing the means to flex its muscles in a region that, thanks to global warming, could become the next Mecca for energy sources

China's State Oceanic Administration has provided more information about its first domestically built icebreaker, announcing the expected entry into service in 2013 of an 8,000-tonne vessel with a cruising radius of 20,000 n miles.

The new USD300 million icebreaker will be operational at temperatures below -35 degrees C and will be equipped with helicopters, robots, workboats and other facilities, Chinese reports said.

It will join the 21,250-tonne Xue Long, or Snow Dragon (pictured), the world's largest non-nuclear-powered icebreaker, which was purchased from Ukraine in 1993.

My article, published today in Jane’s Defence Weekly, continues here (subscription required).

China launches ChinaSat-1A, military applications suspected

2011-09-22T00:34:00.006+08:00

One launch at a time, China is building its constellation of eyes in the sky. The latest addition, sent into orbit on Sunday, has transmission, data relay, and tracking capabilities

With no prior announcement, China on 18 September launched the ChinaSat-1A (Zhong Xing-1A; ZX-1A, 中星1) vehicle into orbit, which analysts say could serve as a communications relay vehicle for the People’s Liberation Army.

The 11,500-pound ZX-1A was launched into geosynchronous orbit on a Long March 3B/E (長征3B/E) rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC/ LC-2) in Sichuan Province. The satellite has an orbital high point of 22,200 miles, a low point of almost 120 miles and an inclination of 27 degrees, US military tracking data shows.

While Chinese state media say the ZX-1A will provide high-quality voice communication, broadcast and data transmission services for users across China, Western analysts believe the vehicle could serve the Chinese military by providing secure digital data and voice communication to its military forces.

The ZX-1A was designed and manufactured by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp and has a lifespan of 15 years. The satellite is equipped with three receiver antennas and two transmission antennas.

Reports say the satellite could be the Chinese military’s first communications satellite to use the Dongfanghong-4 (DFH-4) bus, China’s most advanced standardized platform for communications missions. In addition to high capacity broadcast communication, DFH-4 buses reportedly also have tracking and data relay capabilities, along with strong capabilities against hostile disturbance and jamming.

The ZX-1A is been referred to as a second-generation Fenghuo (FH) tactical communications satellite. The FH series are believed to be Chinese military comsats and data relay satellites providing both C-band and UHF communication. The first FH satellite, the ZX-22, launched on 25 January 2000, was the first of a series of military communications satellites for China’s Qu Dian C4I system for PLA ground forces.

Sunday’s launch was China’s 10th this year, of which nine have been successful. A launch failure in August destroyed the Shi Jian 11-04 military satellite.

This article was meant to appear in Jane’s Defence Weekly but had to be shelved as this week’s issue was already over budget. A freebie for you readers.

Ghosts of Kissinger and Brzezinski

2011-09-20T00:03:00.003+08:00

Feuds pitting the NSC against the Department of State over Taiwan and China are nothing new. We are just witnessing the latest round in a long, ugly battle for influence over policy

Last week’s comments in the Financial Times by an unnamed “senior” official in the administration of US President Barack Obama expressing “distinct concerns” about stability in the Taiwan Strait if Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is elected president in January caused a storm of indignation among DPP supporters.

The race between Tsai and her main opponent, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), is a very close one, with the implication that any outside interference could tilt the game. It is one thing for authoritarian and undemocratic Beijing to meddle in Taiwan’s elections with money, political pressure and statements on its preference for Ma. It is another one for Taiwan’s principal ally, the democratic US, to do so.

Leaving aside the questionable decision by the FT to run an article based on the comments of an unnamed US official — knowing that doing so would play into the hands of individuals who want to influence Taiwan’s democratic process — the incident confirms yet again the institutional bias that faces Tsai as she enters the election.

The US Department of State has denied any involvement in the “leak” and reaffirmed its position that the Obama administration is neutral in the election. However, history shows us that Washington’s policy on Taiwan and China has often been marked by personal feuds, turf wars, secrecy — and yes, leaks to the press.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Harper’s inaction in the Dechert scandal

2011-09-16T07:26:00.005+08:00

Officials in the Harper government say MP Bob Dechert should be taken at his word when he claims that his exchanges with a journalist for Xinhua did not compromise security

The scandal involving MP Bob Dechert and Shi Rong (施蓉), a female reporter for Xinhua news agency in Toronto, has gained momentum all week, and it seems that my op-ed on the subject, which appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on Tuesday, had something to do with that. In the past few days, I have received several requests for comment and interviews, including a half-hour chat with CJAD radio on Thursday. This was to be followed by my appearance, via telephone, on a segment of CBC television’s Power and Politics with Evan Solomon, which had me up at 5:30am. However, live television being what it is, something went wrong and I didn’t make it on the show. This said, here’s what I had planned to discuss.

In my view, what needs to be emphasized is the fact that this scandal really must be investigated, if only to clear Shi Rong’s name. If this situation is allowed to fester — and ignoring the problem, as the government seems to be doing, would accomplish just that — Shi could find it difficult to continue working in Canada. Canada is not authoritarian China, which means that investigations serve as means to both incriminate and exonerate individuals.

As for Mr. Dechert, who is also a parliamentary secretary to Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, regardless of whether Shi was a spy or not (and he could not have known), he ignored three red flags that nobody in his position can afford to ignore: China, Xinhua, and a young woman. China is too aggressive on espionage for those risks to be ignored.

The fact that Mr. Dechert is a member of the Canada-China Legislative Association, which seeks to foster closer ties between the two countries, makes his unprofessional dealings with Shi very problematic. (Mr. Dechert accompanied PM Harper on a trip to China in 2009.) Shi could very well be innocent, and this can only be determined via investigation. Mr. Dechert, however, isn’t innocent, period. He is guilty of seriously bad judgment, and in my opinion he has done irreparable damage to his reputation as someone who can be trusted with the kind of access he likely gets in his position.

What also needs to be emphasized is that as the Harper government seeks closer ties with China, government officials, members of the business community, and even reporters, will need to be educated about China and the risks that arise from such engagement. Canada has several things wanted by China (technology, natural resources, competitive edge, window into the US/NATO, etc), and pretending that we’re the nice guys won’t change that fact.

This scandal should prompt the government into action: First, it needs to address the issue at hand, and second, it needs to educate its officials and the community. In the end, if Mr. Dechert really didn’t know how risky his behavior was, then there’s a problem with the whole government, and this needs to be remedied. It’s an uphill battle for agencies like CSIS, as the political directive is to play down the threat amid efforts to court Beijing. The KMT government in Taiwan is doing the exact same thing at the moment, looking the other way whenever China’s behavior is inconvenient for rapprochement.

My views on this are bipartisan and do not specifically target the Conservative government, as the Liberals were equally “soft” on China, starting with the killing, and then watering down, of the “Sidewinder” report in 1997, which already pointed to the risks of dealing with China. Officials in foreign affairs and at CSIS resigned over the matter.

The decision to play down the Dechert scandal is political, and thus what we are seeing is the politicization of intelligence, where policy drives intelligence (in other words, PMO telling CSIS and other agencies: Don’t look into this, as this will complicate our efforts to create rapprochement with Beijing). In a perfect world, intelligence would be provided regardless of policy and as a means to inform policy decisions. My feeling — and I could be wrong, as there’s no knowing for the moment — is that the Harper government told CSIS not to look into the matter. This finds precedent in CSIS Director Richard Fadden coming under severe fire for alleging that foreign (read Chinese) intelligence had penetrated our government.

Another parliamentary secretary to Baird who appeared on the CBC show and whose name I forget said he, Baird and Harper were taking Mr. Dechert at his word and believed him when he said he hadn’t compromised security. Asked repeatedly if an investigation had been launched, the aide, who said he was a “close friend” of Dechert, kept repeating the PMO took Dechert at his word. Now here’s a government that is taking those matters seriously!

As for Shi Rong, the latest is that she has left Canada on a “scheduled” vacation. It isn’t known whether she will be back.

Chair of Taiwan studies launched at University of Ottawa

2011-09-16T00:23:00.003+08:00

The new center hopes to tap into the richness of Taiwanese history to shed light on political developments worldwide

An enthusiastic crowd packed the Tabaret Hall at the University of Ottawa on Wednesday evening for the official launch of the chair of Taiwan Studies at the Canadian capital’s top university.

The chair was made possible following an agreement between the university and Taiwan’s Ministry of Education.

The designated titular of the chair is professor Scott Simon from the department of sociology and anthropology, with professor Andre Laliberte of the school of political studies acting as co-chair.

The chair will be interdisciplinary and extend to fields including political studies, anthropology, sociology, economics and development.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here, with comments by the two co-chairs, my friends Scott Simon and Andre Laliberte.

Sad day for Taiwan’s air force

2011-09-14T20:58:00.004+08:00

Two crashes involving ageing aircraft confirm the need for Taiwan to modernize its forces. But to blame the accidents on the Ma administration is invidious

Two Taiwanese Air Force aircraft, one F-5F and a RF-5 crashed into Dongao Mountain (東澳山) in Suhua Township yesterday evening, thirteen minutes after takeoff. All three on board, Lieutenant Colonel Chang Chien-kuo (常建國), 41, Major Wang Hung-hsiang (王鴻祥), 36, and Captain Hsiao Wen-min (蕭文民), 29, perished in the separate crashes.

The following day, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) launched a tirade against the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), accusing them of “sabotaging” attempts by Taiwan to purchase 66 F-16C/Ds from the US, which would replace the F-5s — acquired in 1974 — after they are retired. Implicit in their attacks was that Chang, Wang and Hsiao (and the other eight pilots who lost their lives to crashes since 2008) would be alive today had it not been for the failed efforts to modernize the air force.

While there is absolutely no doubt that Taiwan must acquire more modern and advanced aircraft, it is unlikely that Tuesday’s incident was the result of ageing equipment. Initial reports by the military rather point to pilot error, with the two aircraft, flying at an altitude of about 2,000 feet, deviating from their course and slamming into Dongao. It is hard to imagine that two aircraft on the same nighttime training sortie would crash simultaneously due to mechanical failure, old though the equipment may be.

That being said, older equipment does put the lives of the men and women who serve this country at risk, even more so should there be armed conflict at some point. Although it would be invidious to attribute Tuesday’s deaths to the purported failings of the Ma administration, those lost lives nevertheless highlight the need for both political parties, the Ministry of National Defense and Taiwan’s diplomats abroad to work together to ensure that members of the armed forces get the equipment they need to do their job. Those men and women put their lives at risk every day to ensure that Taiwan retains its free and democratic way of life under the shadow of Chinese invasion. We owe it to them that they be able to do so as safely and effectively as possible.

MND mum on land-attack cruise missile plans for Penghu

2011-09-14T00:15:00.005+08:00

Amid fears that US arms sales could dry up, Taiwan could explore ‘more radical’ solutions in the production and deployment of indigenous systems

Taiwan’s military could deploy surface-to-surface missiles on the Penghu Islands as part of efforts to mount a more credible deterrent capability against China, budgetary documents submitted earlier this month say.

According to the documents, the Ministry of National Defense’s Missile Command would deploy three missile squadrons at a fixed base on Penghu as part of a NT$2.5 billion (US$84.8 million) “Ji Zhun” (戟隼) plan for the acquisition of Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) land attack cruise missiles. Part of the budget would reportedly be set aside for the construction of bunkers with dehumidifying systems to store the missiles.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 2008 gave the go-ahead for the production of 300 HF-2Es. The missile, developed by the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST), was approved for full production earlier this year.

The HF-2E can be fired from land-based emplacements as well as surface vessels. With an estimated range of 600km, the HF-2E brings some ports in southern China within range, which would now be extended by being deployed on Penghu, located in the middle of the Taiwan Strait.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Memo to Bob Dechert

2011-09-13T09:27:00.003+08:00

In light of Harper’s decision to deepen the relationship with China, perhaps it’s time for Canadian officials to get an updated security briefing on the risks that will accompany that engagement

The controversy over Ontario MP Bob Dechert’s “amorous” e-mails to the Xinhua News Agency chief correspondent in Toronto has more to it than the simple infatuation of a mid-aged politician for a beautiful young Asian woman. Above all, it serves as a reminder to the Harper government that, despite warming relations with Beijing, China was and remains an intelligence threat.

Whether the 53-year-old Dechert had sexual intercourse with the thirtysomething Shi Rong or stuck, as he claims, to a “flirtatious” friendship is of little import. As an MP and, more significantly, a parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, his lapse in judgment has highlighted beyond doubt a vulnerability that raises serious questions as to his suitability to serve in those positions.

It is common knowledge — and Dechert should have known — that journalists at the Chinese Communist Party-run Xinhua News Agency often double as spies for the Chinese intelligence apparatus.

[...]

As the Conservative government intensifies its courtship of Beijing, with a China visit for Harper reportedly in the preparatory stages, Ottawa should pay close attention to the lessons learned by countries with a long history of being targeted by Chinese espionage. One of those countries is Taiwan, over which China claims sovereignty and would be willing to go to war.

My op-ed, published today in the Ottawa Citizen, continues here.

Tsai’s golden opportunity

2011-09-13T00:03:00.003+08:00

The KMT is very likely shadowing the DPP candidate on her US visit, but Tsai should nevertheless avoid political bickering and instead use the occasion to show what she is capable of

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) over the weekend said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was “extending” domestic politics abroad by sending a delegation headed by King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), executive director of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) re-election campaign, to the US just days ahead of her long-planned trip.

While Tsai’s assessment of King’s visit was likely right on target, it nevertheless came across as somewhat childish. Yes, as the party in power, the KMT could send delegations to the US any time of the year, and yes, the timing of King’s visit is conspicuous. That being said, there is no rule that says the KMT cannot send a delegation abroad whenever DPP officials embark on a foreign trip.

Both Tsai and King, certainly not by coincidence, are scheduled to give speeches at Harvard University on Thursday. Rather than engage in recriminations and conspiracy theories, the DPP presidential candidate should instead use King’s presence to contrast her policies with those of Ma.

Her main task while in the US should not be to disparage the KMT for trying to “undermine” her visit — rhetoric that is certain to have little appeal with Taiwanese-Americans and potential supporters in academia — but rather to prove to an audience that may be a little skeptical that a new DPP administration would be one that Washington could work with.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Canadian MP’s flirty e-mails to Xinhua bureau chief made public

2011-09-12T00:01:00.003+08:00

It is an open secret that many Xinhua journalists double as intelligence officers for China. MP Bob Dechert apparently did not get the memo

A senior Canadian lawmaker and secretary to the minister of foreign affairs apologized on Friday after his flirtatious e-mails to a journalist with Xinhua news agency were made public.

Bob Dechert, a Conservative MP for the Missisauga-Erindale riding near Toronto, was forced to explain the missives on Friday after a mass e-mail distributed to media, academics and political contacts the previous day described his amorous messages to Shi Rong (施蓉), the Toronto bureau chief for Xinhua. The e-mails, sent from Dechert’s parliamentary account, were dated around April last year.

One, dated April 17 last year and signed “Bob Dechert, MP,” read: “You are so beautiful. I really like the picture of you by the water with your cheeks puffed. That look is so cute, I love it when you do that. Now, I miss you even more.”

Another e-mail, sent three days later, read: “Dearest Rong ... How is your day? Did your interviews at Royal Bank go well? Did you get enough information for your articles?”

Informing her he had just arrived in Ottawa, Dechert then wrote: “I enjoyed the drive by thinking of you.”

“We [the Canadian House of Commons] will be voting at 6:30 p.m. If you have time, watch on TV or on your computer [on the CPAC Web site] and I will smile at you,” the message read, concluding with: “I miss you. Love, Bob.”

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Death by leaks: Thoughts on the WikiLeaks furor

2011-09-10T04:12:00.003+08:00

People who expect to learn about the dirty little secrets of diplomacy will be underwhelmed by the material in the leaked cables on Taiwan

Much has been made in the past week of the hundreds of diplomatic cables concerning Taiwan that were among those released by WikiLeaks on Aug. 30, sparking a war of sorts among newspapers and TV stations to see which one can report most on the subject. Media organizations have been busy sifting through the 80 or so pages listing the Taiwan-related diplomatic cables to identify those that have the most news value. And judging by the Web hit counts, those efforts are not unwarranted.

The diplomatic cables’ appeal with the public stems from one characteristic alone: The great majority of them are classified (standard classification levels in Western government agencies are “unclassified,” “classified,” “secret” and “top secret,” with various means of narrowing the distribution list, such as “Top Secret, NATO/ISAF” or, for example, “UMBRA/ORCON for highly sensitive signals intelligence).

One need not be an intelligence specialist, however, to realize that there is very little in those cables that isn’t already public knowledge. Classified documents can give the reader the impression that he or she is getting a rare glimpse at what lies behind the curtain, but in reality, most such documents do little more than state the obvious.

My op-ed, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Beijing warns ‘madmen’ in Washington on F-16s

2011-09-10T04:01:00.002+08:00

Beijing upped the rhetoric against Washington on arms sales to Taiwan, using a mixture of threat and insult that is unlikely to be well-received in Washington

An editorial in the People’s Daily yesterday adopted unusually bellicose language to “warn” Washington against selling advanced weapons to Taiwan, pointing to the “disastrous price” that would be paid if Washington proceeds with the sale.

“At present, some madmen on Capitol Hill are making an uproar about consolidating and expanding this cancer,” the paper said, referring to the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires the US to sell Taiwan the military equipment it needs for its self-defense.

Calling US politicians who support continued arms sales to Taiwan “wildly arrogant,” the editorial said Sino-US relations would find themselves in a predicament if the sale were allowed to proceed.

[...]

“Some people want to turn back the tide of history, but they must be clear about the disastrous price they will have to pay,” the editorial said.

“A word of advice for those muddleheaded congressmen: Don’t go too far, don’t play with fire,” it said.

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Abe warns on health of US-Japanese alliance

2011-09-08T00:01:00.005+08:00

The US and Japan must reinforce their alliance to ensure regional stability. But with both countries facing serious financial difficulties, the time may have come to delegate

Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe told a conference on regional security in Taipei yesterday that the March 11 earthquake and tsunami marked a “turning point” in the US-Japanese alliance and warned that if both countries did not find ways to resolve their financial difficulties, they would have no choice but to cut their defense budgets.

In a keynote speech at the International Symposium on Regional Security of the Asia-Pacific and Peace in the Taiwan Strait (亞太區域安全與臺海和平), Abe said the damage from the tsunami was comparable to that caused by war.

The symposium was organized by the Taiwan National Security Institute and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.

While the financial crisis in the US has already forced Washington to cut defense spending, Japan, which is also facing financial problems in the wake of the disaster in March, could also be compelled to do so and that would have a negative impact on troop morale and Japan’s ability to modernize its armed forces, Abe said, referring to such a scenario as a “national security crisis.”

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

UN was told to drop ‘Taiwan is part of China’ reference: cable

2011-09-06T00:10:00.002+08:00

Demarches by the US and Canadian missions at the UN forced the organization and its Beijing-friendly secretary-general to drop references to Taiwan as being part of China

A number of Western governments, with the US in the lead, protested to the UN in 2007 to force the global body and its secretary-general to stop using the reference “Taiwan is a part of China,” a cable recently released by WikiLeaks shows.

The confidential cable, sent by the US’ UN mission in New York in August 2007, said that after returning from a trip abroad, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had met then-US ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad to discuss a range of issues, including “UN language on the status of Taiwan.”

“Ban said he realized he had gone too far in his recent public statements, and confirmed that the UN would no longer use the phrase ‘Taiwan is a part of China,’” said the cable, which was sent to the US Department of State and various US embassies worldwide.

[...]

The cable said that the UN missions of Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand had also consulted with the UN on the subject, adding that in reaction to the US demarche, the Canadian mission had followed with a demarche of its own and “received the same commitment that the UN would no longer use the phrase.”

My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Lack of consistency sows confusion

2011-09-06T00:02:00.002+08:00

Who could blame people outside Taiwan for being confused about how to refer to it, when its very government wavers on the issue?

As if the status of Taiwan were not confusing enough to the outside world, inconsistency from President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration as to how the country should be referred to on the international stage often compounds the problem.

In most instances, the Ma government has been content with Taiwan participating in international events under the designation “Chinese Taipei.” In fact, the administration has depicted such a designation at the WHO’s World Health Assembly (WHA) as a great accomplishment and a direct result of its “flexible” diplomacy.

Officials in the Ma government like to tell us that how the nation is referred to at international events is not as important as its ability to participate in the first place.

However, there have been other occasions in which the government took offense at the use of “Chinese Taipei.” The latest such instance involves the country of origin given to the Taiwanese production Seediq Bale (賽德克巴萊), which premiered last week in Venice, Italy.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Taiwan Is Losing the Spying Game

2011-08-30T02:30:00.003+08:00

If President Ma Ying-jeou doesn't clean house in his military, the US could become more reluctant to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan

Much ink has been spilled in recent months over the Obama administration's reluctance to sell Taiwan the 66 F-16C/D fighters it has been requesting since 2007. A final decision is expected by Oct. 2, and while many observers predict that political considerations will lead Washington to nix the deal, another factor may be at work: the penetration of almost every sector of Taiwanese society by Chinese intelligence. For the U.S. government and defense manufacturers, any arms sale to Taiwan carries the risk that sensitive military technology will end up in Beijing.

This worry is not new. Anyone who has followed developments in Taiwan over the years knows how deeply Chinese forces have infiltrated Taiwan's military, especially its senior officers. For years American officials have looked on in amazement as newly retired Taiwanese generals traveled to China for a round of golf, were wined and dined by their counterparts in the People's Liberation Army, and no doubt had their inebriated brains picked for information.

Taiwan's reputation has not been helped by a string of embarrassing cases involving members of the armed forces or civilians who spied for China. Some of the programs compromised involved American assistance, such as the Po Sheng "Broad Victory" upgrade to the military's command and control infrastructure. Even more damaging are the instances when culprits got away with a light sentence. Earlier this year Lai Kun-chieh, a software engineer, received a mere slap on the wrist for attempting to pass information about the PAC-3 Patriot missile defense system to China.

My commentary, published today in the Wall Street Journal, continues here.

What is the PLA hiding underneath Hebei?

2011-08-30T00:09:00.005+08:00

Many questions surround China’s nuclear policy. The construction of a 5,000km tunnel, ostensibly to shelter its nuclear arsenal, is raising even more

Military watchers in recent years have made much of the rapid modernization of China’s military, focusing primarily on the introduction of new platforms, such as the J-20 stealth fighter and the refurbished Varyag aircraft carrier, or advances in missile technology, such as the Dong Feng-21D “carrier killer.”

To a large extent, this is also what the US Department of Defense’s latest report on the Chinese military released last week zeroed in on.

However, since 1995, tens of thousands of soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been working on a project that, to date, has attracted surprisingly little attention. That this is the case befuddles the mind, as this endeavor, first revealed in a 2008 CCTV documentary and confirmed by the PLA’s China Defense Daily in December 2009, has the potential to alter the strategic balance in the Pacific. Stunningly, the new Pentagon report only makes one brief mention of that development.

The project in question is a 5,000km tunnel, dubbed the “underground Great Wall,” which the Second Artillery has been digging in the mountainous regions of Hebei Province. The Second Artillery is in charge of China’s ballistic missile arsenal, including its strategic nuclear deterrent, though the latter falls under direct command of the Central Military Commission.

According to reports, the tunnel is being built to store China’s nuclear arsenal.

My op-ed, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Knowing when to put politics aside

2011-08-30T00:01:00.003+08:00

The Ma camp committed a faux pas of sorts on Sunday by insisting on talking politics as the nation braced for a powerful typhoon

As a powerful typhoon approached Taiwan on Sunday, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is seeking re-election in January, did what any true leader would do in such a situation: He called an impromptu press conference.

However, rather than discuss emergency preparedness before the storm, which had already killed eight people in the Philippines, Ma decided to take his main opponent in the election, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), to task on a question that clearly was on everybody’s mind on such a day — the so-called “1992 consensus.”

With the mudslides triggered by Typhoon Morakot in 2009, which left more than 700 people dead or missing in the south, still fresh in everyone’s mind, the matter of an alleged consensus that may or may not have been fabricated post-facto is evidently what any responsible president should be focusing on. Thankfully, it now appears that Typhoon Nanmadol will not cause such devastation, but the fact remains that on Sunday, there was no way of knowing.

Had entire villages been devastated by mudslides in the coming days, somehow the victims would have felt better knowing that Ma is a true believer in the consensus and that this was what he was focused on as the storm was closing in.

My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

Ukraine, China’s arms bazaar par excellence

2011-08-28T18:56:00.003+08:00

As Moscow grows reluctant to sell China its most advanced military technology, Beijing is using Ukraine as a backdoor to acquire what it wants

Chinese Chief of the General Staff Chen Bingde (陳炳德) paid a “goodwill” visit to Ukraine earlier this month, the first such visit by a top Chinese military officer in a decade. Beyond all the usual talk of strengthening “strategic” bilateral ties, one thing that stood out was the calls for greater cooperation on military production.

While meeting Chen, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the visit showed the Chinese government and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) regarded Sino-Ukrainian relations as “one of their priorities.” As we shall see later, there’s a reason for that.

Among other sectors, Azarov called for deeper cooperation on aviation manufacturing, as well as on landing craft, hovercraft, large transport aircraft, tanks, air defense and radar, adding that he hoped analysis would be conducted for the implementation of a five-to-10-year bilateral cooperation plan.

Unsurprisingly, Chen said cooperation should indeed be deepened. No wonder, as China has long relied on Ukraine to access a variety of platforms and weapons systems denied it by Moscow. A source with a long history of watching the PLA Air Force and who spends a fair amount of time in the country every year told me recently that Ukraine served as a kind of arms bazaar for the Chinese. Two areas, aviation and naval technology, have seen increasing cooperation in recent years. This includes advanced aircraft engines, which remain problematic for Chinese manufacturers. In fact, US military analysts estimate that the engine bottleneck remains the principal problem preventing the deployment of China’s J-20 stealth aircraft.

While for the past decades Russia has been China’s primary source of weapons technology, both in terms of finished-product acquisitions and cooperation in manufacturing, in recent years Moscow has grown more reluctant to sell China its most advanced technology. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that Moscow, like the rest of the region, is growing wary of China’s rise. The second is that the Russian military is embarking on a modernization program of its own, and its manufactures can hardly produce enough devices to meet the requirements of the Russian armed forces, let alone build items for export (a third reason might have something to do with repeated theft of Russian technology by the Chinese, who then produce cheaper copies that compete directly against the Russian originals on the international arms market).

As a former member of the soviet bloc, Ukraine has been in a position to serve as a market for heritage military hardware, which China and others have benefited from. Given its proximity to Russia and longstanding ties in military production (not to mention transfers on the black market), the country is now an ideal alternative for China as it seeks to access the latest Russian technology. Chen’s visit was simply confirmation of that.