http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2010/11/06/2003487815

Recent media reports have said that when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) met experts on cross-strait strategy from the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, he stressed that over the past two years, Taiwan and China have signed 14 agreements and these have brought Taiwan many positive effects.

Ma also said that Taiwan-US relations are now closer than at any time in the past and that the arms sales Washington promised Taipei at the start of this year were the largest in more than a decade.

With regards this information, it is unclear whether the reporters got things wrong, those who provided the information were wrong or whether Ma just has too high an opinion of himself.

Anyone who has followed the long relationship between Taiwan and the US knows that there has been a change in arms sales to Taiwan in recent years, that Ma has a bad track record of delivering on national defense promises and that Taiwan’s national defense capability has been weakened as a result.

While the Ministry of National Defense classifies the content of military arms sales a state secret, a report by Shirley Kan (簡淑賢), an expert on Asian security affairs at the US Congressional Research Service, shows that the highest value of arms sales to Taiwan over the last 20 years occurred in 1992. The most significant changes over the past decade happened in 2006 and last year, when no arms were sold to Taiwan. After that, the highest amount of arms sold to Taiwan was in 2008, not this year. All the 11 items sold to Taiwan in that year were deals that had been secured before Ma came into office. In addition, most of the items barely helped maintain Taiwan’s existing defense capabilities as there were no forward-looking items that could help establish a future deterrent.

Before Ma was elected, he promised that the defense budget would remain less than 3 percent of GDP. He also hoped to streamline the military and implement an enlisted army system within four to six years and said that conscription would be suspended during times of peace. However, because the funding may now not be available, Ma is considering postponing the change or adopting a mixed enlistment/conscription system, although the streamlining plan has already had an impact on the internal allocation of the national defense budget. As a result, it is becoming difficult to maintain the 4:3:3 proportion between manpower, operations and military investments. With reform of the national defense structure continually changing, each segment of the military is fighting for resources.

Although Ma is still trying to purchase F-16C/D fighter aircraft from the US, he does not have a concrete strategy for, nor has he made any moves toward, obtaining submarines. However, during an interview on Oct. 28, American Institute in Taiwan Director William Stanton said the US was no longer a big-brother figure and that weaponry is not the only way to guarantee a nation’s safety. He also said that he did not believe any specific weapon systems were key to solving problems and that no weapons system could change everything. The pan-blue and pan-green camps interpreted his remarks very differently.

In future, it will become very hard for Taiwan to acquire key weapons from the US. Although the current prevailing idea that trade breeds peace may minimize the risk of war, the flip side of that seems to be that the military is of no use. However, once an incident occurs, the cost could be unbearably high. Ma may have declared that he will bring a “golden decade” to Taiwan, but it will also probably be the most dangerous decade ever for the Ministry of National Defense.

Wang Jyh-perng is an associate research fellow at the Association for Managing Defense and Strategies.

TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON