From The Washington Post:
H/T: Terry
Amid warming relations with China, Taiwan's president seeks more U.S. arms
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 17, 2011; 8:36 AM
TAIPEI, TAIWAN - Despite nearly three years of warming relations across the narrow Taiwan Strait, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou on Thursday pressed his case for continued American weapons sales to the island, including advanced U.S.-made fighter jets, saying Taiwan needs to negotiate with China from a position of strength.
Ma, in an interview, said Taiwan needed both new F-16C/D fighter jets to modernize its fleet, and also upgrades to its existing F-16A/B class fighters, which are aging and in need of replacement parts. The Pentagon is still studying the request, and past U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have infuriated the mainland Chinese government, last year leading to a suspension of military-to-military contacts between Washington and Beijing.
Taiwan "is a sovereign state," Ma said in an interview at the presidential palace here. "While we negotiate with the mainland, we hope to carry out such talks with sufficient self-defense capabilities and not negotiate out of fear."
"We oppose the use of military force to resolve cross-strait disputes," Ma said. "However, this is not to say that we cannot maintain a military capability necessary for Taiwan's security."
Ma said that during his term, which began in May 2008, the relationship between Taiwan and mainland China "is the most stable of any time in 60 years." Since he came to office, China and Taiwan have established direct air and sea links and mail service, tourism has boomed, and last year the two sides signed their first-ever economic cooperation agreement allowing a range of tariff free goods to flow across the Strait.
Ma's policy of pursuing direct economic ties and warmer relations with mainland China, Taiwan's erstwhile enemy, is a stark reversal from the policies of his predecessor Chen Shui-bian. Chen angered Beijing's leaders with actions they considered provocative and inching Taiwan toward toward independence.
As part of that rollback of his predecessor's policies, Ma last week called for all public officials to refer to the other side of the Taiwan Strait as "the mainland," as opposed to "China." He said the semantics are dictated by Taiwan's constitution, which calls for recognition that there is only one China.
China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland and keeps more than a thousand missiles on its eastern coast aimed toward the island. Taiwan has governed itself since the end of China's civil war in 1949, when Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek fled here with his defeated army and established a rival government to Mao Zedong's Communist Party on the mainland.
With 70,000 Taiwanese companies now investing more than $100 billion on the Chinese mainland, Ma said the next phase of his negotiations will focus on protections for those businessmen and their assets.
His political opponents here, including the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, have accused Ma of wanting to launch political reunification talks with China that might jeopardize the island's de facto independent status. Some fear he might have already negotiated political concessions as part of the trade deal.
"We are asking whether there are any political conditions attached to this process," said Tsai Ing-wen, chairman of the DPP and a likely presidential candidate next year.
But Ma said his interest now was in cementing economic ties to China, not talking politics.
"Both sides have agreed to start from economics, and political issues are not the priority," Ma said. "Our approach is to put economics before politics, pressing matters before less pressing ones, and easily resolved issues before difficult ones."
This Story
Amid warming relations with China, Taiwan's president seeks more U.S. arms
Transcript: Post's interview with Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou
Taiwan earlier this month was rocked by a spy scandal, when the defense ministry announced the detention of a senior army officer, Maj. Gen. Lo Hsien-che, who was accused of leaking military secrets to China for more than six years. Lo is the most senior military officer in 50 years accused of spying for China, and his detention in late January raised fears that sensitive American military secrets might have been passed to Beijing.
Ma, in the interview, addressed the scandal directly, saying his government was still trying to determine precisely what military intelligence was leaked to mainland China and whether Lo had any accomplices. He expressed regret and sought to assure the United States that it could trust Taiwan with sensitive information.
"This is a very serious case that we deeply regret and which has put us on alert," Ma said. "In the future, we will take stricter safeguards to prevent recurrences of this kind of case."
He said Taiwan's military relationship with Washington so far "has not been affected" by the scandal.
Some of Ma's critics here said the spy case showed that despite Ma's outreach efforts, China remains hostile to Taiwan. As an example, they said China has increased the number of its missiles aimed at Taiwan over the past few years, and the Chinese military recently conducted a test flight of its new J-20 stealth fighter.
"The so-called warming up [of relations] is just a smoke screen," said Lai I-chung, foreign policy director of the Taiwan Think Tank, which is close to the main opposition party. "The military buildup against Taiwan continues unabated, and they develop newer, faster capabilities against Taiwan."
In the hour-long interview, conducted in Chinese with a government translator, Ma spoke at length about political reform in China, which he noted has lagged far behind the pace of China's economic reforms of the last 30 years. Because Taiwan came through its own period of martial law and authoritarian rule to emerge as a vibrant democracy beginning in the late 1980s, Ma said Taiwan could offer lessons to the mainland.
"Naturally, we hope that the mainland as it interacts with us can gradually become free and democratic," Ma said. "Of course, we know that this is not an easy task. However, the existence of Taiwan in fact serves this sort of mutual caring function with respect to the mainland."
Asked whether mainland China's new leadership, under presumed heir Vice President Xi Jinping, might more aggressively pursue political reform, Ma responded, in English, "We hope so."
"We would like to see gradually more progress on the mainland," Ma said. "On the one hand, from Taiwan's point of view, this would further improve cross-strait relations; while on the other hand, it would give the people of mainland China greater opportunity to voice their own opinions."
Xi's elevation to president is expected in 2012, and Ma's term also ends that year. But in the interview, Ma said for the first time that he intends to stand for a second term.
"When I ran for president four years ago, my political plans were intended to be accomplished over eight years' time," Ma said. "We need a longer time frame to realize our platform."
Special correspondent Amber Parcher contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/17/AR2011021702176.html?hpid=sec-world&sid=ST2011021702597
H/T: Terry
Amid warming relations with China, Taiwan's president seeks more U.S. arms
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 17, 2011; 8:36 AM
TAIPEI, TAIWAN - Despite nearly three years of warming relations across the narrow Taiwan Strait, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou on Thursday pressed his case for continued American weapons sales to the island, including advanced U.S.-made fighter jets, saying Taiwan needs to negotiate with China from a position of strength.
Ma, in an interview, said Taiwan needed both new F-16C/D fighter jets to modernize its fleet, and also upgrades to its existing F-16A/B class fighters, which are aging and in need of replacement parts. The Pentagon is still studying the request, and past U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have infuriated the mainland Chinese government, last year leading to a suspension of military-to-military contacts between Washington and Beijing.
Taiwan "is a sovereign state," Ma said in an interview at the presidential palace here. "While we negotiate with the mainland, we hope to carry out such talks with sufficient self-defense capabilities and not negotiate out of fear."
"We oppose the use of military force to resolve cross-strait disputes," Ma said. "However, this is not to say that we cannot maintain a military capability necessary for Taiwan's security."
Ma said that during his term, which began in May 2008, the relationship between Taiwan and mainland China "is the most stable of any time in 60 years." Since he came to office, China and Taiwan have established direct air and sea links and mail service, tourism has boomed, and last year the two sides signed their first-ever economic cooperation agreement allowing a range of tariff free goods to flow across the Strait.
Ma's policy of pursuing direct economic ties and warmer relations with mainland China, Taiwan's erstwhile enemy, is a stark reversal from the policies of his predecessor Chen Shui-bian. Chen angered Beijing's leaders with actions they considered provocative and inching Taiwan toward toward independence.
As part of that rollback of his predecessor's policies, Ma last week called for all public officials to refer to the other side of the Taiwan Strait as "the mainland," as opposed to "China." He said the semantics are dictated by Taiwan's constitution, which calls for recognition that there is only one China.
China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland and keeps more than a thousand missiles on its eastern coast aimed toward the island. Taiwan has governed itself since the end of China's civil war in 1949, when Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek fled here with his defeated army and established a rival government to Mao Zedong's Communist Party on the mainland.
With 70,000 Taiwanese companies now investing more than $100 billion on the Chinese mainland, Ma said the next phase of his negotiations will focus on protections for those businessmen and their assets.
His political opponents here, including the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, have accused Ma of wanting to launch political reunification talks with China that might jeopardize the island's de facto independent status. Some fear he might have already negotiated political concessions as part of the trade deal.
"We are asking whether there are any political conditions attached to this process," said Tsai Ing-wen, chairman of the DPP and a likely presidential candidate next year.
But Ma said his interest now was in cementing economic ties to China, not talking politics.
"Both sides have agreed to start from economics, and political issues are not the priority," Ma said. "Our approach is to put economics before politics, pressing matters before less pressing ones, and easily resolved issues before difficult ones."
This Story
Amid warming relations with China, Taiwan's president seeks more U.S. arms
Transcript: Post's interview with Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou
Taiwan earlier this month was rocked by a spy scandal, when the defense ministry announced the detention of a senior army officer, Maj. Gen. Lo Hsien-che, who was accused of leaking military secrets to China for more than six years. Lo is the most senior military officer in 50 years accused of spying for China, and his detention in late January raised fears that sensitive American military secrets might have been passed to Beijing.
Ma, in the interview, addressed the scandal directly, saying his government was still trying to determine precisely what military intelligence was leaked to mainland China and whether Lo had any accomplices. He expressed regret and sought to assure the United States that it could trust Taiwan with sensitive information.
"This is a very serious case that we deeply regret and which has put us on alert," Ma said. "In the future, we will take stricter safeguards to prevent recurrences of this kind of case."
He said Taiwan's military relationship with Washington so far "has not been affected" by the scandal.
Some of Ma's critics here said the spy case showed that despite Ma's outreach efforts, China remains hostile to Taiwan. As an example, they said China has increased the number of its missiles aimed at Taiwan over the past few years, and the Chinese military recently conducted a test flight of its new J-20 stealth fighter.
"The so-called warming up [of relations] is just a smoke screen," said Lai I-chung, foreign policy director of the Taiwan Think Tank, which is close to the main opposition party. "The military buildup against Taiwan continues unabated, and they develop newer, faster capabilities against Taiwan."
In the hour-long interview, conducted in Chinese with a government translator, Ma spoke at length about political reform in China, which he noted has lagged far behind the pace of China's economic reforms of the last 30 years. Because Taiwan came through its own period of martial law and authoritarian rule to emerge as a vibrant democracy beginning in the late 1980s, Ma said Taiwan could offer lessons to the mainland.
"Naturally, we hope that the mainland as it interacts with us can gradually become free and democratic," Ma said. "Of course, we know that this is not an easy task. However, the existence of Taiwan in fact serves this sort of mutual caring function with respect to the mainland."
Asked whether mainland China's new leadership, under presumed heir Vice President Xi Jinping, might more aggressively pursue political reform, Ma responded, in English, "We hope so."
"We would like to see gradually more progress on the mainland," Ma said. "On the one hand, from Taiwan's point of view, this would further improve cross-strait relations; while on the other hand, it would give the people of mainland China greater opportunity to voice their own opinions."
Xi's elevation to president is expected in 2012, and Ma's term also ends that year. But in the interview, Ma said for the first time that he intends to stand for a second term.
"When I ran for president four years ago, my political plans were intended to be accomplished over eight years' time," Ma said. "We need a longer time frame to realize our platform."
Special correspondent Amber Parcher contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/17/AR2011021702176.html?hpid=sec-world&sid=ST2011021702597
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