CIA Director Porter Goss said on Thursday that the opportunity for reconciliation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait had been damaged by China's passage of its "Anti-Secession" Law and Taiwan's push for a new constitution.
In testimony to the Senate Committee on Armed Services on Thursday morning, Goss cited both the new law and Taiwan's "constitutional re-engineering" as negative factors affecting cross-strait relations.
Gross made the statement while discussing current and future worldwide threats to US national security. He said the Taiwan Strait is one of the five most sensitive security issues in the world.
"A mild thaw in cross-strait relations, following the first-ever non-stop flights across the Strait, may be eclipsed by Beijing's Anti-Secession Law and Taipei's constitutional reform agenda," he said.
"Beijing enacted on March 14 an anti-secession law [that] Taipei characterizes as a war-authorizing law. Taipei's National Assembly will vote this summer on constitutional reforms that Beijing has warned are part of a timeline for independence," he said.
"If Beijing decides that Taiwan is taking steps toward permanent separation that exceed Beijing's tolerance, we believe China is prepared to respond with various levels of force," he said.
According to Goss, Beijing's military modernization and military buildup is tilting the balance of power in the Strait, and its improved capabilities are threatening US forces in the region now.
"In 2004, China increased its ballistic missile forces deployed across from Taiwan and rolled out several new submarines," he said, stressing that China continues to develop more robust, survivable nuclear-armed missiles, as well as conventional capabilities for use in a regional conflict.
He said that China is increasingly confident and active on the international stage, trying to ensure it has a voice on major issues and counter what it sees as US efforts to contain or encircle it.
"[The] new leadership under President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) is facing an array of domestic challenges in 2005, such as the potential for a resurgence in inflation, increased dependence on exports, growing economic inequalities, increased awareness of individual rights, and popular expectations for the new leadership," Gross said.
He also addressed the controversy over his agency's interrogation practices during his testimony.
US officials do not view torture as a method for gaining vital intelligence, Goss said. But he acknowledged some CIA operatives may have been uncertain about approved interrogation techniques in the past.
"Professional interrogation has become a very useful and necessary way to obtain information to save innocent lives, to disrupt terrorist schemes and to protect our combat forces," he said.
"The United States does not engage in or condone torture," he said.
"I know for a fact that torture is not productive. That's not professional interrogation. We don't torture," he said.
Goss said the CIA complied fully with a broad definition of torture contained in a Justice Department memo issued on Dec. 30 last year. He could not offer assurances about CIA practices earlier last year, when the government followed a narrower interrogation policy.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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