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PRESIDENT CALLS FOR JAPAN-TAIWAN 'MILITARY PARTNERSHIP'

ROC Central News Agency

2006-09-10 16:09:00

    Tokyo, Sept. 10 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian expressed hope during an interview with a Japanese television channel Sunday that Japan and Taiwan can enter a military partnership to help bolster security in East Asia.

    In the interview with Fuji TV Channel 8 aired Sunday, Chen said current Taiwan-Japan relations are their best in three decades. He said that although Taiwan maintains no formal diplomatic relations with Japan, it hopes to forge a "military partnership" with Japan for mutually beneficial security arrangements.

    During the interview conducted in Palau Sept. 5 when he was visiting the South Pacific island country, Chen said China has never forsworn its plans to take Taiwan militarily.

    Chen said that when he was first elected president in 2000, China was known to have deployed 200 ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan. By 2006, he added, the number of missiles had increased to 820 as China has increased its deployment by 100 to 120 missiles every year.

    He quoted intelligence information as indicating that China might invade Taiwan in three stages: Preparing itself to be capable of responding any time to a war with Taiwan by 2007; readying itself for launching massive and comprehensive assaults against Taiwan by 2010; and making itself capable of taking Taiwan once and for all by 2015.

    Chen expressed his appreciation for Japan and the United States for the two countries' inclusion of peaceful solution to the Taiwan Strait conflict in a "two plus two" security meeting held in February 2005 as one of the strategic goals in the U.S.-Japan security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

    Expressing welcome to the inclusion, Chen said that although Japan and Taiwan maintain no formal diplomatic ties, the two countries' forging a military partnership would be a shot in the arm in efforts to boost regional security.

    On concerns that China has been working to split and disintegrate Taiwan from within, Chen said Beijing does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state and has refused to talk with Taiwan's popularly elected government. Instead, he said, Beijing has talked only to Taiwan's opposition parties.

    Chen said it is regrettable that some Taiwan opposition parties and their leaders have been used by China as "united front" tools against Taiwan.

    On the issue of the fast-growing Taiwan investments in China, Chen said that with the rush of Taiwanese businessmen heading to China with their funds and know-how, the administration should not lose the sense of crisis and insecurity with regard to China.

    He said many Taiwan businessmen have become aware that they would be left in a quagmire doing business in China if they do not insist on their Taiwan identity. "Taiwan businessmen will get nowhere without the country as their backup," Chen claimed.

    Meanwhile, Chen said he has consistently admired Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, particularly for his guts in saying "no" to Beijing. He said he would extend his most hearty invitation to Koizumi to visit to Taiwan after Koizumi retires later this year to grace a ceremony marking the inauguration of Taiwan's high-speed railway, which uses Japan's Shinkansen bullet train system.

(By Mike Chang and Deborah Kuo)

ENDITEM/J