Taiwan to Cut 9,200 Troops as China Ties Warm

TAIPEI - Taiwan plans to slash the number of its troops by 9,200 this year amid warming ties with China, but the cut will be offset by more advanced weaponry, an official said March 7.

The reduction is part of a five-year plan aimed at trimming the size of Taiwan's armed forces by 60,000, or more than 20 percent from the present level of 275,000 troops.

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But the defense ministry said the island's defensive capabilities would not be undermined as it seeks more high-tech and powerful weapons.
"The era of maintaining a huge number of forces has gone. Defense capability is no longer determined by the number of troops," the ministry's acting spokesman Lo Shau-ho told AFP.
Taiwan's relatively large army is a legacy of decades of tensions with China, which still regards the island as part of its territory since the two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949.
However, ties have improved dramatically since Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou of the China-friendly Kuomintang party came to power in 2008 promising to boost cross-strait trade and tourism.
China's own military budget is set to rise nearly 13 percent to 601.1 billion yuan ($91.7 billion) this year, officials said March 4, while stressing that the mainland wants to modernize its armed forces for defensive duties.
But China's build-up is widely seen by analysts as geared in large part at reclaiming Taiwan. Taiwanese experts say China has more than 1,600 missiles aimed at the self-ruled island.
Despite the easing of tensions with Taiwan's giant neighbor, Ma says the island needs to maintain sufficient self-defense while pressing for dialogue with Beijing.
In January 2010, the U.S. government announced a weapons package for Taiwan that includes Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters and equipment for Taiwan's F-16 fleet, but no submarines or new fighter aircraft.
Beijing reacted angrily to the arms deal, saying it would cut military and security contacts with the United States. But Ma's government continues to press Washington for an improved version of the F-16 fighter.

S. Korea Blames North for GPS, Phone Jamming

SEOUL - North Korea has been trying since March 4 to jam mobile phones in the Seoul area, as well as GPS tracking devices used by South Korean troops, government and intelligence authorities here said.

The jamming accusations take place as the U.S. and South Korea are conducting joint military exercises. Above, a U.S. soldier sits inside a nuclear, biological and chemical reconnaissance vehicle March 3 at Dongducheon, about 25 miles north of Seoul. (Jung Yeon-Je / Agence France-Presse)

The North is believed to be conducting trials of its truck-mounted GPS jamming equipment, allegedly modified from Russian ones, according to the sources, amid high tension over the ongoing joint command post/field training exercises by South Korean and U.S. forces.

The local Munwha Broadcasting Corporation, or MBC, reported the General Bureau of Surveillance of the North Korean People's Army, blamed for the deadly sinking of South Korea's Cheonan warship last year, was behind the latest attempt to block South Korean communication devices.
Col. Yoon Won-shik at the public affairs office of South Korea's Ministry of National Defense declined to comment on the report, and whether or not the GPS-jamming signals were sent by the North.
Yoon said, however, his ministry "has already recognized the North's intent to develop its technology used in blocking GPS signals in the South."
According to the Korea Communications Commission, GPS signals in Seoul and nearby cities, including the western port city of Incheon and Paju near the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) dividing both Koreas, started being disrupted in the afternoon of March 4.
As a result, some mobile phones both used by civilians and soldiers - as well as certain military equipment, such as distance measurement devices in artillery units - in the areas didn't work properly, the commission said.
Some citizens in the areas were still suffering network problems with their cellular phones March 6, it said.
Commission and other government officials believe the GPS-jamming signals were sent from the North's military bases in Haeju and Gaeseong, which are close to the heavily fortified border.
"The signals were sent intermittently every five to 10 minutes, so we suspect the North was testing its new GPS blockers imported from overseas given that the jamming signals were not sent continuously," an unidentified intelligence source said, according to Yonhap news agency.
Damage by the GPS disrupting maneuvers was relatively minor, the official said, adding: "The South Korean government has already been on track to establish an anti-jamming system to control and overcome such a low level of GPS blocking attempts."
In a parliamentary audit of the defense ministry in October 2010, former Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said that the North had already developed a GPS jammer by copying a Russian device.
The jammer is believed to be capable of disrupting all GPS signals in radius of 50 to 100 kilometers (31 to 62 miles), including state-of-the-art missiles and precision bombs.
When the Iraq War began in 2003, the Iraqi army is known to have caused a stir by using a similar GPS jamming system to disrupt the U.S. military's guided weapons systems.
The South Korean military and U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) has boosted their GPS-guided precision striking missiles in recent years.
Since last March, USFK has deployed five new A-10 ground attack jet aircraft that can carry the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). The South Korean Air Force has also equipped its fleet of KF-16 fighters with JDAMs.
The JDAM can be used in neutralizing North Korea's artillery pieces hidden in mountain caves and tunnels near the border.

Iranian Warships Headed Home Via Suez

TEHRAN - Two Iranian warships that entered the Mediterranean last month, sparking an outcry from Israel, have passed through the Suez Canal back into the Red Sea, naval commander Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayari said March 5.
"The flotilla ... has completed its mission successfully in the Mediterranean Sea and has returned to the Red Sea transiting through the Suez Canal," the official news agency IRNA quoted Sayari as saying.

It was the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution that Iranian warships had entered the Mediterranean, and Israel described the move as a "political provocation."
The frigate Alvand and supply ship Kharg passed through the Suez Canal on Feb. 22 and docked two days later at the Syrian port of Latakia.
Sayari did not say when the warships began their return journey, but said it took them "10-12 hours to transit" the canal. He said the flotilla conveyed a message of "peace and friendship to friendly countries."
Israel, which considers Iran its biggest threat after repeated predictions by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of its demise, put its navy on alert during the flotilla's mission.
Analysts say the deployment was an attempt by Iran to project its clout in the region at a time when anti-government protests sweeping the Arab world from Casablanca to Cairo are shifting the regional balance of power.
The Suez Canal Authority said last month that ships of any nationality can pass through "as long as the country is not in a state of war with Egypt."

N. Korea Wants South to Return Captured Boaters

SEOUL - North Korea on March 5 made a fresh demand for the repatriation of all 31 citizens whose boat drifted into South Korean waters, warning inter-Korean relations would be otherwise seriously affected.
The latest message carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency came a day after the North refused to accept 27 of the 31, insisting that Seoul also hand over four others who want to live in the South.

"The South Korean authorities are forcing the detained guiltless inhabitants to separate from their families by appeasement and pressure," it said in a notice sent to the South on March 5.
"If the South Korean authorities do not comply with [North Korea's] just demand, it will seriously affect the North-South relations and the South side will be held wholly accountable for it," it said.
The North Koreans were on a fishing boat which drifted across the Yellow Sea border in thick fog on Feb. 5.
After almost a month the South said it would hand over 27 but announced that two men and two women would be allowed to stay as they had requested.
In a message late March 4, the North demanded the unconditional repatriation of all 31, according to Seoul's unification ministry, whose officials had been waiting in vain at the border village of Panmunjom to hand over the 27.
A ministry spokesman has said the South would try to contact North Korea again early next week to send the 27 home across the border.
The communist state late March 3 accused the South of "despicable unethical acts" and said the group on the boat had been held hostage in a bid to fuel cross-border confrontation.
Seoul's Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek told parliament the four had been allowed to stay in the South in respect of their wishes.
The four include the 38-year-old boat captain, who apparently feared punishment if sent back and decided to stay when he saw how different life in the South is, the newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported.
Relations have been icy since the South accused the North of torpedoing the corvette Cheonan in March 2010 near the disputed Yellow Sea border, killing 46 lives. Pyongyang denies the charge.
In November the North shelled a South Korean island near the border, killing two South Korean Marines and two civilians.

China's Defense Budget Hits Record $91.5B

TAIPEI - China has announced a 12.7 percent increase in its annual defense budget to a new high of $91.5 billion, up from $78.6 billion in 2010 and a return to the double-digit growth recorded through most of the 2000s. Last year's increase was 7.5 percent. China's defense budget rose from $27.9 billion in 2000 to $60.1 billion in 2008.

China says part of the reason for its increasing military budget is to improve living standards for “grass-root units.” Above, People’s Liberation Army soldiers patrol the streets of Urumqi, Xinjiang province, in July 2009. (File photo / Agence France-Presse)

China overtook Japan in 2007 and the United Kingdom in 2008 in defense spending and is now second only to the U.S.

U.S. defense analysts have accused China of hiding its actual budget, which over the past few years could be well over $100 billion annually.
"There is no such thing as a so-called hidden military expenditure in China," Li Zhaoxing, spokesman for the Fourth Session of the 11th National People's Congress, said at a March 4 news conference announcing the budget.
Li said the bulk of this year's spending would go toward moderate improvements in armament, training, human resource development, infrastructure and living standard improvements for "grass-root units." The new defense budget accounts for only 6 percent of China's total budget, he said.
"I think Li is right on the explanation of the rise of the new military budget," said Zhuang Jianzhong, vice director of the Center for National Strategy Studies at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Commodity prices have been rising rapidly, and wages and subsidies are comparatively low compared with Western military personnel, he said.
Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, director-general, Strategic Studies Department, National Defense University, echoed the explanation. Military salaries are trying to keep pace with rising inflation as the Chinese economy continues to expand, he said.
China's military also has to meet the demands of educating and training personnel as the military takes on more international responsibilities, such as piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden and continued involvement in U.N. peacekeeping operations.
As an example, Zhuang cited Chinese military involvement in the evacuation of Chinese citizens from Libya and downplayed critics who suggest China's military is planning foreign expeditions. China has no "intention to expand or invade or station military overseas," he said.
There is also an argument that the military wants more respect from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Richard Fisher, vice president of the Washington-based International Assessment and Strategy Center, said the CCP lives in fear of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The party leadership needs to increase the pay of its officers, "lest the current galloping inflation and resulting social discontent wash over to the PLA."
Party power would "collapse if the PLA were to wake up some day and 'vote' against it," which "reflects power, but also fear."
Not everyone is buying the "inflation" and "salary increases" argument for a nearly 13 percent increase in the defense budget.
"Given an inflation rate of about 4 percent, that is an 8 percent real increase," said Richard Bitzinger, a former U.S. intelligence analyst, now a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore.
"While it may be a bit less than the average annual growth rate of the past 15 years, it is still up from last year and seems consistent with China's continued emphasis on putting considerable resources into building up its military," he said.
"If we applied a purchasing power parity deflator to the yuan, it would be at the very least double the size of the Chinese defense budget."
Transparency remains an issue not only in China's defense spending, but also with China's stated capabilities and intentions, said Andrew Erickson, a China defense specialist at the U.S. Naval War College.
"Even the most basic data on service budgets remain unavailable to foreign researchers," he said. "China's military capabilities are clearly growing, but its intentions - at least beyond asserting control over its territorial and maritime claims, to include Taiwan - remain somewhat unclear."
Erickson pointed to expensive efforts by China's military for force modernization, including the recent unveiling of the stealthy J-20 fighter, the outfitting of the former Varyag aircraft carrier and development of the Dong Feng 21D anti-ship ballistic missile.
Also, Beijing's strategic goals "simply do not necessitate the military resources that Washington requires to fight two wars and maintain a global presence," he said.
Although China is expanding its global presence and is now conducting its first military operations in the Mediterranean evacuating Chinese citizens from Libya, it is still far behind the U.S. in global reach and responsibilities.
One explanation for China's return to double digit military spending increases is that the CCP leadership "needs to increase spending because many programs, like aircraft carriers and nuclear missile submarines, are entering their expensive procurement phases," Fisher said.

Senate Democrats Introduce Spending Bill

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee introduced a spending bill March 4 that would fund the Pentagon through Sept. 30, but comes up short of what Defense Secretary Robert Gates says is needed.
The Senate bill funds defense at $672 billion, which includes $158 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This represents a $17.3 billion cut to the president's request for defense spending for 2011.

The $514 billion base budget is far below the $540 billion Gates has said the Pentagon would need to operate.
The bill does not fund an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The administration has repeatedly said it does not need the G.E.-Rolls-Royce-built engine.
In addition, the bill cuts $9 billion across operations and maintenance accounts due to "programmatic adjustments, historic under-execution and unsupported requests for civilian personnel increases," according to a committee statement.

German Defense Secretary Sacks State Secretary

BONN - One day after coming into office, Germany's new defense secretary Thomas de Maizière sacked Walter Otremba, one of the two permanent state secretaries.
Under de Maizière's predecessor, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Otremba, 59, had been responsible for the restructuring of the Bundeswehr. He headed the commission that designed the plan for changing the leadership structure of the military and the defense department.

In his March 4 announcement, de Maizière said reforms would continue, but said he would pause for a thorough assessment of the situation before making any decisions.
A department spokesman gave no reasons for Otremba's transfer to a temporary retirement, and said a successor would be named soon.