Fri, Jul 22, 2005 page1

• Legislator changes tack on arms bill

  `RATIONAL DEBATE' A People First Party legislator who had long been against the special arms budget now said he would like to talk about it in the Defense Committee

  • By Ko Shu-ling / STAFF REPORTER
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  The stymied special arms procurement budget bill saw new hope yesterday when a long-time opponent advocated its passage through the legislature's Procedure Committee, where the package has been blocked 26 times.

  "It does not make much sense to keep boycotting the arms procurement plan at the Procedure Committee, because if we continue to do that, we will be criticized as an irrational party," said People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方), who is a member of the legislature's National Defense Committee. "I'm in favor of letting it proceed to the National Defense Committee for a rational debate, and I'm sure that it will turn out the way we want, taking into account the numerical advantage we enjoy in the legislature."

  Lin said that other lawmakers also shared his thinking. He, however, opposed screening the special arms budget bill during a special legislative session, as proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus.

  Lin's change of heart comes after the release of the US Department of Defense's annual report to Congress on the Chinese military, which clearly points out that the special arms procurement budget bill are still awaiting approval from the Legislative Yuan.

  Pointing out what he called "mistakes" in the report, Lin called on the public to refrain from panicking and to take the report with a grain of salt.

  While an appendix in the report says that Taiwan has 25 infantry brigades, Lin said that the actual number is far less, without specifying the exact figure (according to the data supplied by Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense [MND] in its 2004 National Defense Report, the army has 25 combined arms brigades).

  Lin said the report also says that Taiwan has one marine division but that the correct number should be three brigades (in fact, page 43 of the report says Taiwan has one marine division divided into three marine brigades), and the correct number of destroyers should be one, instead of the six listed in the report (the MND report says Taiwan has seven Wu Chin III-class destroyers, also called Gearing-class destroyers).

  "If the information about us is false, I doubt the information they obtain about China is correct," he said. "I don't think the data provided in the report is convincing enough to support their argument."

  Lin also said that China did not deploy many new weapon systems over the past few years, and that the DF-31 and DF-31A ballistic missiles are still in the developmental process and have not yet entered mass production, let alone been deployed. He did not give a source for his information.

  While China's growing military might is limited, Lin said, the US, on the other hand, has been "aggressively" beefing up its military deployments in East Asia, including Hawaii, Guam and Japan.

  The reason that the US government made public the military report is simple, Lin said.

  "They need to depict China as a `new demon' to replace the `old demon' of the Soviet Union to justify their high military budget," Lin said. "The report is also aimed at pressuring us to purchase the three military weapons systems they want us to buy from them."

  By law, the US Congress requires the Pentagon to submit a report on the Chinese military each year.

  Lin also called on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to mend fences with his defeated election rival, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), and form a taskforce to jointly tackle the arms procurement plan.

  If its long-time ally is not united, Lin said that his party will not know who to work with.

  Lin also called on Ma to to improve his relationship with his party and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜). Since the KMT and PFP share a similar support base, Lin called on Soong to give up on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and cooperate with the KMT and independent lawmakers.

  Meanwhile, Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Douglas Paal yesterday visited Wang to express his concern over the long-delayed arms budget.

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  KMT official says peace through talks better than defense
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