Thank you very much for inviting me to speak on this important topic. Before I begin, I wish to commend the Commission for keeping the policy community focused on the significant challenges posed to America and its friends and allies by the rise of China.
Today’s topic -- Taiwan’s defense reform and modernization and its implications for Asian security -- has been much on my mind for quite some time.
But I would like to start out by saying that Taiwan is trying to accomplish something enormously difficult, a fact that too many people in Washington have lost sight of.
Taiwan is trying to complete a democratic transition in the face of a daunting military threat. While many transitioning democracies face the difficult tasks of establishing civilian control over and professionalizing and reforming the military, Taiwan’s window to do so is much smaller than others, given that it faces an imminent threat from the most rapidly modernizing military in the world -- The People’s Liberation Army.
Democratic Transition
When President Chen took power in 2000, it marked the first time in Taiwan’s history that the opposition Democratic Progressive Party controlled the government. The Kuomintang had ruled Taiwan for more than 50 years, and until the early 1990s had maintained an autocratic regime. Under this KMT system, the military was a tool of the party’s hold on power. Because the DPP was considered an internal threat to the KMT regime, the military and the intelligence services were regularly used to harass DPP members and even to brutally suppress dissent.
The military education system in Taiwan indoctrinated officers with KMT ideology -- so called “independence activists” were treated as much enemies as the mainland Chinese communists. This propaganda eased a bit as Taiwan democratized in the 1990s, but when Chen came to power, he was still viewed with suspicion by the military brass, which remained sympathetic to the KMT.
In response to this civil-military dissension, the Chen administration implemented two laws meant in large part to institutionalize civilian control in Taiwan. These changes included a more direct reporting system from the Minister of Defense and the Chief of General Staff to the President. They also brought in a cadre of civilian professionals to staff the Ministry of Defense, and established a national security council and interagency system that would provide guidance to defense and military policymakers.
President Chen and his advisors also had ideas about how to adjust military strategy. Their defense concept can be roughly translated to “decisive operations offshore.” The idea behind this was to engage the enemy as far away as possible from the civilian population on Taiwan. This called for a new stress on air and naval forces, as well as command control, computers and communications and intelligence reconnaissance and surveillance (C4ISR) to network the force and link it up with the command structure. Chen and his advisors feared that the PLA was developing a different kind of strategy than the massive amphibious assault Taiwan’s defense planners had long feared -- a limited attack meant to paralyze Taiwan’s governing ability and economic lifeline with the goal of collapsing Taiwan’s political will.
This strategic adjustment in Taiwan matched new thinking emerging within the U.S. defense policy community. American planners also began to fear that a joint missile and air attack, combined with electronic and information attacks coordinated with or carried out by fifth column elements in Taiwan, possibly in combination with a naval blockade, could overwhelm Taiwan before America could intervene on its behalf.
But when Chen began to introduce these changes to his military he met with stiff resistance. The Army feared losing its domination over the military and there was still much ideological opposition to Chen within the senior ranks. Indeed, there is some evidence that leaders of the Ministry of Defense at the time slow-rolled the procurement of defense items approved by the Bush Administration in 2001.
The Bush Administration should be lauded for approving a $30 billion plus weapons package in 2001 that included submarines, Kidd class destroyers, and P3 aircraft. But Taiwan’s procurement budget, though large when measured against other U.S. allies, is only about 400 million dollars a year. It was never realistic to think that $30 billion of weapons could be absorbed within three years. And, the administration took another commendable step -- it turned Taiwan into a “normal security partner” that could requests systems at any time. But Taiwan had to revamp a procurement system that was set up to make all its requests at one time, during annual Arms Sales Talks. This new system is in place but it took time to adjust. In short, Taiwan had to adjust to the good news it received all at once.
The Bush Administration also continued with the policy of its predecessor in increasing interaction between the U.S. and Taiwan defense establishments. Likewise, the Taiwan military was studied and assessed ad nauseum by U.S. military and defense experts who produced hundreds of specific recommendations.
Though the two sides immediately began to work on the submarine, Kidd, P3 and C4ISR program, the Taiwan defense establishment suffered some system paralysis in grappling with the many changes and pressures it faced. In addition, because of self-imposed restrictions dating back to 1979, the U.S. does not have a strong, authoritative system in place to manage the host of programs it has with Taiwan. This is changing incrementally, but, for example, there still has not been a single general or flag officer or senior defense official on the island of Taiwan since 1979. Not only is this ineffective in advancing our goal of reforming Taiwan’s military, it also puts our troops in danger if there is an attack by China.
The U.S. decided to publicly announce what it thought Taiwan’s priorities should be: missile defense, anti-submarine warfare and C4ISR.
To rush systems that meet those requirement through, the Chen government proposed in 2003 to use a special budget to buy 8 diesel submarines, 12 P3s and 6 PAC 3 systems. This would complement the already purchased Kidd class destroyers, the ongoing C4ISR program, and the already funded early warning radar.
Programs Meet problems in U.S. and in Taiwan
Due to hypersensitivity in Taiwan over procurement scandals -- a legacy of the KMT era -- Taiwan will only procure its arms through the Foreign Military Sales program, through which American official select and contract for specific defense systems. The submarine program was very difficult in this regard because there was no American diesel submarine in existence. The U.S. had to provide Taiwan with a cost estimate based on a notional design. There was no existing system to point to in order to gain the support of legislators in Taiwan. This was also a slow and arduous process in which even good pricing data was not available until 2003. In addition, there was no certainty that any European partner that owned the design for diesel submarines would agree to team with an American contractor.
But the main problem with the procurement of these items is the resistance of the so called “Pan Blue” opposition parties, the KMT and People’s First Party. Just yesterday I read that these parties rejected even the consideration of the special budget by the defense committee for the twenty-eight time. If you go to Taiwan and talk to legislators in the defense committee across parties you find that they are willing to engage in the back and forth of deciding what to buy, what to put in the annual budget and what to put in the special budget. But the Pan Blue leadership will not even allow the debate to occur.
And this obstructionism is despite the efforts of the military and the Chen government. Chen’s second term Defense Minister Lee Jye has personally met with every legislator to ask for their support. He has been flexible in talking to legislators in about procurement strategies But, still no go -- not even an official parliamentary debate. The pure political cynicism of the Pan Blue opposition is obvious -- these items, the Submarines, P-3s, and PAC-3s, are the same the KMT asked for when it was in power. It is a pure act of partisan politics, a dislike of President Chen.
My recommendation to this commission is that it focus its attention on the pan-Blues. The KMT and PFP leadership must know that influential Americans are aware that Blues are putting partisan politics ahead of Taiwan’s security. The Blues want to be back in the leadership one day -- they should be on notice that they will have to face American policymakers who know that they are responsible for stalling Taiwan’s defense modernization.
The picture is not entirely bleak. Taiwan continues to be a major purchaser of American defense systems -- until 2003 they were the second largest purchaser in the world. Taiwan has bought the Kidd class destroyers, is linking up many of its platforms and command centers through its C4ISR programs, and has purchased AMRAAM air-to-air missiles.
The two defense laws have been faithfully implemented -- civilians are in place at the MND, there is now a joint staff, and there is a strategic planning department in place whose job it is to link defense strategy to procurement and training. More officers come to the U.S. for training than ever before and the unofficial dialogue between the two defense establishments is ongoing.
Risks
Nonetheless, Taiwan is facing an unrelenting Chinese military build-up aimed in part to force unification. And, the fact remains that though it faces one of the most daunting missile threats in the world, Taiwan has no real missile defense to speak of. If the Pan-Blues continue along this course of obstructionism they certainly embolden those in America who are looking for a way out of the commitment. The American ability to successfully meet its commitment to Taiwan is getting more difficult as the PLA brings capabilities on line that are meant to put doubts in the minds of U.S. decision makers. Indeed, PLA modernization is designed to pose the question: “We have missiles capable of hitting your bases in Japan and we have submarines that could threaten your aircraft carrier battle groups. Is Taiwan really worth it to you?”
And to the extent it appears, despite the many nuances and complexities I have tried to lay out, that Taiwan is not willing to defend itself, Americans will inevitably be less and less willing to defend Taiwan. For a range of strategic reasons, I cannot imagine a situation where America would not come to Taiwan’s defense -- the stakes are too high, but we may fool ourselves into thinking that we won’t. And that is dangerous.
With that in mind, we need to clear away obstacles that we imposed upon ourselves over the years to cooperate with Taiwan and use all the tools that our defense establishment has to push Taiwan faster and harder to buy the systems and make the changes needed to become too costly for China to attack. And this includes making our displeasure with the Pan-Blues clear and strengthening President Chen’s hand as he strives to enact his defense reforms. If we are serious about Taiwan’s defense then it is time to get much more involved in helping the Chen government and military accomplish its reform goals -- or we may well look back at this period and wish we had.
Dan Blumenthal is a resident fellow at AEI.
