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China urged to renounce use of force against Taiwan

ROC Central News Agency

2011/11/10 21:51:57

Washington, Nov. 9 (CNA) Mainland China should renounce the use of force against Taiwan to show goodwill and pave the way for signing a peace accord or establishing confidence-building measures (CBM) across the Taiwan Strait, a visiting Taiwanese official said Wednesday.

Deputy Defense Minister Andrew Yang said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, that China's public renunciation of the threat or use of force against Taiwan could serve as a goodwill gesture and both sides could start from unilateral declarations to show good intentions.

Citing President Ma Ying-jeou, Yang said that Taiwan has not set a time frame for striking a peace deal with China. As a first step toward that goal, Yang said, China could start with issuing goodwill statements on its foreign policy.

"Without any peace move, how can we have a peace agreement?" he asked.

Touching on the proposal that the two sides should craft a military CBM, Yang said this is a very complicated issue because the current cross-strait situation is extremely rare.

Ma has made it clear that cross-strait engagements at the present stage should be centered on trade and economic exchanges, he noted.

On Taiwan's future arms procurement plans, Yang went on, no progress has been made so far on the country's desire to purchase more advanced jet fighters to replace its aging fleet.

Yang was apparently referring to Taiwan's hopes of buying 66 F-16 C/D jet fighters, which the United States has not yet approved.

Asked about the procurement of F-35s, Yang said Taiwan remains open toward all interesting suggestions. F-35s are a family of single-seat, single-engine, fifth-generation multi-role fighters under development to perform ground attacks.

Noting that U.S. arms sales to and military cooperation with Taiwan are critical to Asia-Pacific economic development, peace and democratization, Yang said that Taiwan is concerned about not only quantity but also the quality of U.S. arms sales.

On Taiwan's stance toward the South China Sea sovereignty dispute, Yang said the area is the historical territory of the Republic of China. He further said that any territorial disputes should be handled through peaceful means and that Taiwan should not be excluded from international negotiations about relevant issues.

Six countries -- Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines -- claim all or part of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea and its Spratly, Paracel and Pratas islands, the Macclesfield Bank and the Scarborough Shoal.

Taiwan controls the Pratas and Taiping Island, the largest islet in the Spratly chain.

Although there have been calls for Taiwan to beef up its defense capabilities in the South China Sea, Yang said, the government has no plans at the moment to change its practice of deploying Coast Guard personnel rather than military servicemen on the islands. (By Tony Liao and Sofia Wu) ENDITEM/J