Taiwan's Defense

choi

(1) Peter Enav, Ex-US Diplomat Rankles Taiwan With Defense Remarks. Associated Press, Mar 18, 2013
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/sto ... 2013-03-18-03-42-16

Quote:

"The comments from William Stanton constituted an unusually hard-hitting critique of Taiwan's national security posture, and stood in sharp contrast to repeated assertions of American support for President Ma Ying-jeou's five-year program of seeking to lower tensions with the mainland.

"His charge [PRC spies infiltrating Taiwan] constitutes what is believed to be the first public acknowledgement from a US government official - serving or recently retired - that Chinese espionage against Taiwanese targets may be impacting America's willingness to provide security assistance to Taipei.

(2) 吳明杰, 前國防部長// 蔡明憲揭密：台灣有中程導彈; 回憶錄透露 5年前成功研發. 自由時報, Mar 16, 2013.
http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2 ... ay-t1.htm?Slots=All

Note:
(a)
(i) 中程導彈 medium-range missile (of course, Mr Tsai deliberately muddled the watewr by using 導彈, a term used in China but not in Taiwan (where 飛彈 is used))
* AFP described "medium-range guided missile" in its report which also stated "Tsai did not give specifications for the medium range weapon described in his book."
* The medium-range ballistic missile is defined, in general, to have a range of 1,000 to 3,000km.
* Taiwan, even under Pres Chen Shui-bian, has never acknowledged success in testing ballistic missiles, let alone medium-range ones.
(ii) 彈道飛彈 ballistic missile
(iii) 巡弋飛彈 cruise missile
(b) His new book:

蔡明憲, 天佑台灣─蔡明憲的從政告白. 望春風出版社, 2013.
(c) 蔡明憲 (Defense Minister, Feb-May, 2008 (是民進黨政府八年來首位文人國防部長); 國安會副秘書長 2006 (eight months; quit to run for 立法委員 in January 2008);
副國防部長 2004－2006; 駐美副代表 2002-2004)