Thu, Sep 15, 2005 page3

• US official in Taipei to finalize talks

  SECURITY Hu Jintao's planned visit to the US appeared to have scuttled the annual Monterey Talks, but they will now proceed after the US defense department intervened

  • By Mac William Bishop / STAFF REPORTER
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  A senior US Department of Defense official arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday to finalize arrangements for annual high-level security discussions, Taiwanese sources said yesterday.

  The discussions, called the "Monterey Talks" because they take place in Monterey, California, were originally scheduled to be held on Sept. 13 and 14, but were canceled because of the visit to the US by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤). According to one Washington insider, the decision to scrap the talks was a "last-minute" decision made by US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

  However, after the cancelation was leaked to the media, and because of pressure from the US defense department, the US National Security Council held an emergency meeting in which it decided to declare that the talks had not been canceled altogether but "postponed" due to "scheduling conflicts," according to one Taiwanese official, who asked not to be named.

  The US official, Dana White -- the country director for Taiwan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense -- arrived in Taipei on Tuesday to finalize arrangements for the resurrected talks, the Taiwanese official said.

  Although the official would not release the dates of the new talks, he confirmed that they would take place, and added that he believed National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Ko Cheng-heng (柯承亨) would be the most senior Taiwanese official attending.

  In the past, the Monterey Talks have been chaired on the US side by an assistant secretary of defense, and the most likely candidate for this year's talks would be Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter Rodman.

  The Monterey Talks are the highest-level security dialogue between the US and Taiwan, and have taken place every year since 1997. It is "the primary forum for addressing strategic concerns associated with the defense of Taiwan," according to one US defense expert.

  "The last two meetings included bilateral war-gaming intended to facilitate coordination and reduce response time in the event of Chinese military aggression against Taiwan," the expert said.

  This year's discussions are not expected to include issues like the stalled special arms-procurement budget, but are likely to focus on overall strategic concerns between the US and Taiwan, the expert said.

  The fact that politicized issues such as the controversial budget were largely ignored during the talks was one of the reasons the dialogue was so important, he said, adding that the purpose of the discussions was to focus on the shared security interests of the two nations.

  The special arms budget has become a sticking point in US-Taiwan defense relations, and many US commentators have pointed to the failure of the bill to move forward as evidence of Taiwan's lack of commitment to its security.

  However, some experts say that issues such as the Monterey Talks point to an ongoing, robust defense relationship between Washington and Taipei.

  For example, Gary Schmitt, executive director of the Project for the New American Century, and Dan Blumenthal, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal that Taiwan was making a serious effort to bolster its defenses.

  "From 1996 to 2003, for instance, Taiwan was the second largest recipient of arms purchased from the US," they wrote.

  "Although it is true that defense spending as a percentage of Taiwan's GDP has declined over the past decade, the largest decline took place in the years when the [Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)] was still in charge," they wrote.

  "Taiwan's defense burden as a percentage of GDP -- at 2.4 percent -- is still greater than virtually all other American allies," they said.
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