Contentious Taiwanese exercise will employ new frigates
Friday, January 2nd, 2009 From
>Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 10:14:36 -0700
>From: Mike Potter
>Reply-To: mike.potter@artecon.com
>Organization: Artecon, Inc.
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>To: mahan@microwrks.com
>Subject: Contentious Taiwanese exercise will employ new frigates
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>
>Taiwan Says No Plans to Cancel Drill
>____________________________________
>By Alice Hung
>
>TAIPEI (Reuter Thursday June 12 10:54 AM EDT) – Taiwan said on Thursday
>it had no plan to cancel what it called routine military drills on the
>eve of Hong Kong’s handover to China, despite a U.S. request not to hold
>the exercises.
>
>”This is a routine annual exercise. We will proceed,” a defense ministry
>spokesman told Reuters by telephone.
>
>”You shouldn’t link this too much to the (reported) Chinese communists’
>maneuvers. This is not a military competition with the Chinese
>communists.”
>
>The United States on Wednesday urged Taiwan and China not to stage
>military exercises during the sensitive run-up to Hong Kong’s return on
>July 1 to Chinese control.
>
>”It’s best to stand down in times like this and to continue activities
>that promote goodwill and understanding and peace and not to engage in
>activities that are counterproductive,” State Department spokesman
>Nicholas Burns told reporters.
>
>Taiwan announced major military exercises for June 23-24 and an
>independent Hong Kong newspaper reported on Tuesday that China was
>planning to respond with its own military exercises sometime this month.
>
>China on Thursday brushed aside a U.S. call not to hold military
>exercises and urged rival Taiwan to take more actions conducive to
>improving relations.
>
>Asked whether China planned to hold military exercises in the weeks
>before the handover of Hong Kong on July 1, at the same time as planned
>Taiwan war games, Foreign Ministry spokesman Cui Tiankai declined to
>comment.
>
>He also avoided comment on a U.S. call on China and Taiwan not to stage
>military exercises during the sensitive run-up to Hong Kong’s return to
>Chinese control.
>
>The planned maneuver will be the first Taiwanese live-fire military
>exercise since September 1994.
>
>The military has already begun its first rehearsal drill for the late
>June exercises.
>
>State radio reported the armed forces continued the second of a two-day
>rehearsal involving live artillery firing in a southern military base on
>Thursday.
>
>Taiwan has repeatedly said its planned exercises were unrelated to the
>Hong Kong handover despite the sensitive timing, but the Taiwan military
>spokesman confirmed the large-scale war games were intended to boost
>public confidence.
>
>”We would like to take the opportunity to display our newly purchased
>weapons in order to boost confidence of our contrymen,” the military
>spokesman said.
>
>Beijing has regarded Taiwan a renegade province since Nationalist troops
>lost a civil war and took refugee on the island in 1949.
>
>China says its handling of Hong Kong’s return under a “one country, two
>systems” model of political and economic autonomy should reassure Taiwan
>of its own future with the mainland.
>
>Taiwan is expected to showcase a range of new high-technology weapons,
>including F-16 and Mirage 2000-5 fighters recently imported from the
>United States and France.
>
>Also slated for testing are several radar-evading Lafayette-class
>”stealth” frigates bought from France and U.S.-made Patriot anti-missile
>missiles, Taiwanese media has reported.
>
>Analysts said Taiwan’s military exercises have been carefully calculated
>to send Beijing a powerful political message on the eve of the Hong Kong
>handover.
>
>”Taiwan wants to make clear that Taiwan is not Hong Kong,” military
>expert Andrew Yang told Reuters.
>
>”It wants to tell Beijing that Taiwan processes its own army and it will
>never accept the ‘one country, two systems’ formula,” Yang said.
>
>Jason Hu, Taiwan’s chief representative in Washington, said: “There’s no
>political message, period.”
>
>Hu said on Wednesday U.S. officials “fully understand” Taiwan’s plan to
>stage war games and that there was “no better time” because the
>political significance could always be imputed.
>
>Beijing held eight months of war games, amphibious landing practices and
>unarmed ballistic missile tests near Taiwan in the run-up to the
>island’s March 1996 presidential election.
>
>China said then it was warning voters in Taiwan’s first ever
>presidential elections against any move towards independence.
>
>Washington responded by sending two aircraft carrier battle groups to
>the region in a show of support for Taiwan.
>
>Copyright © 1997 Reuters Limited.