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Taiwan stages live military drills to deter China By C.C. Yao
50 minutes ago
Taiwan staged its biggest live-fire army drills in about 20 years on Thursday, showcasing latest weaponry designed to combat a potential Chinese attack as Beijing builds its military might.
More than 13,000 soldiers took part in the exercise, which saw U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets screaming across the sky and tanks firing from a beach at targets floating on the sea.
Paratroopers posing as Chinese communist soldiers floated to the ground, simulating an airborne assault against key installations on the island.
"Across the Strait, China has always been the biggest national security threat to the Republic of China, Taiwan, for the past half a century," said the island's independence-leaning president, Chen Shui-bian.
"Global military strategies are ever-changing with recent heightened tensions along the Korean peninsula," he said, adding that boosting Taiwan's defense would ensure peace and stability along the Taiwan Strait and the Asia-Pacific region.
The annual Han Kuang -- or Chinese Glory -- exercises are designed to counter an invasion by China, which views self-ruled democratic Taiwan as a wayward province that has to be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
China's cabinet-level Taiwan Affairs Office had no immediate comment.
SHIFTING MILITARY BALANCE
Thursday's exercise featured more than 550 pieces of artillery, including nearly 40 types of aircraft, warships, tanks and canons, the Defense Ministry said.
The ministry had splashed flashy advertisements on television in the days ahead of the exercise, part of an ongoing publicity effort to stress the need for bolstering the island's defenses.
Taiwan's defense officials said in February Taiwan planned to raise its annual military spending -- around T$240 billion (US$7.3 billion), or 2.4 percent of gross domestic product in 2006 -- to 2.85 percent of GDP in 2007 and 3 percent in 2008.
The plan came as opposition legislators repeatedly blocked a special budget to buy U.S. arms, even though the package was cut from US$18 billion to US$11 billion, and again to US$9 billion.
Chen said this week China had 820 missiles aimed at Taiwan, giving the island of 23 million people more reason to boost its military defenses.
Taiwan and China have faced off since 1949 when defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island after losing a civil war to the Communists.
The military balance in the Taiwan Strait is now shifting in China's favor because the Asian giant has been pumping up defense amid concern that Taiwan will declare independence, analysts say.
The United States, obliged by its Taiwan Relations Act to help the island defend itself, has repeatedly urged China to explain its military build-up, worried it will alter the balance of regional power.
China's defense expenditure was officially about US$30 billion in 2005, up 12.6 percent from the previous year, but many foreign experts believe the real figure is significantly higher.
I think many would ask the very same questions in 1900 about USA. So why are you so worried?USMCDevilDog said:Do you all think China could be a potential threat in the near future? Their military build up is very suspicious. They haven't answered why they've been doing it, only saying that it's because of "balance" yet the "balance" will be greatly tilted in their favor in less then a year if they keep up the build up.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060720/wl_nm/arms_taiwan_dc
Relay said:I think many would ask the very same questions in 1900 about USA. So why are you so worried?
why so eager to know where i am from i am from Europe is not that enought?Said1 said:Where are you from?
Relay said:why so eager to know where i am from i Am from Europe is not that enought?
Relay said:why so eager to know where i am from i am from Europe is not that enought?
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/chinaandorganhavesting31mar06.shtml
China, if case you don't know, is being groomed by the Illuminati to replace the United States as the world's leading economic and military nation. For the past 45 years, the US industrial base has been driven out of America, while Chinese industry has been built up. That's the real reason that Clinton gave away so many missle and computer secrets to China, along with major port faclilities like Long Beach, California-to the Chinese Army no less. The BIG Illiminati players (with the names we never hear) have been investing in Chinese business for years (remember Kissinger, Nixon, and the 'opening up of China' via ping pong tournments?) and will get the windfall of the Chinese industrial expansion just as they took behind-the-scenes control of industrial Japan immediately following the Second World war.
rtwngAvngr said:Of course they are. How we were bamboozled into empowering them with billions in trade is beyond me.
we are on a suicidal course, due to the lure of satan's cheap goods.
rtwngAvngr said:Of course they are. How we were bamboozled into empowering them with billions in trade is beyond me.
we are on a suicidal course, due to the lure of satan's cheap goods.
dilloduck said:Damn----I want the names of some illuminati controllers. It can't be all that hard to come up with one.
Said1 said:They don't mean channeled in the 'new age' sense do they?
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/channeledgermangeneral23jan96.shtml
Said1 said:They don't mean channeled in the 'new age' sense do they?
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/channeledgermangeneral23jan96.shtml
rtwngAvngr said:I don't know. I haven't read this part.
NO Colonies what i know of and not any big military power either.Said1 said:Just curious.
What was the status of your country militarily and what were it's colonial possessions around, say....1900?
Said1 said:They don't mean channeled in the 'new age' sense do they?
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/channeledgermangeneral23jan96.shtml
Sweden or Switzerland? I think the Netherlands had colonies...Relay said:NO Colonies what i know of and not any big military power either.
dilloduck said:you'll go blind if you read that stuff
rtwngAvngr said:They got to you, didn't they, dillo. Whad jew get, a trip to disneyland and a lifetime supply of bologna?
