Taiwan military proposes 7.8-per-cent budget increase

Sep 1, 2011, 5:29 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan's defence ministry said on Thursday it had proposed a 7.8-per-cent military budget increase for next year as China mounts pressure against the self-ruled island that it claims as its own.

The Ministry of National Defence asked parliament for more than 300 billion Taiwan dollars (10.36 billion US dollars), meeting President Ma Ying-jeou's goal since 2008 of a military budget at 3 per cent of Taiwan's gross domestic product, a ministry media liaison said.

Developing new weapons to counter the growing military might of political rival China, just 160 kilometres away at the nearest point, looms behind Taiwan's budget request, analysts and local media said.

'China's double-digit defence spending increases are nothing new over the past 10 years, so the China threat is an obvious reason,' said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan.

'Military personnel costs are pretty much fixed, so (budget increases) are for investment, which means procurement,' he said.

Communist China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists lost the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong's forces and fled to the island.

Beijing has not renounced the threat of force if Taiwan moves toward formal independence, though the threat has become muted since 2008 when the current government took power.

China has increased deployment of missiles that would enable the People's Liberation Army to do 'multiple-wave precision strikes' against Taiwan, the Taipei Times said on Thursday, citing a defence ministry report to parliament.

Some 1,400 tactical ballistic missiles, short-range missiles, cruise missiles and others are deployed along China's east coast, the region closest to Taiwan, it said. Military officials said last year Beijing was aiming as many as 1,900 missiles at Taiwan.

The proposed military budget includes a record high allocation for homegrown defensive weapons, the Liberty Times newspaper reported.

Taiwan is developing, among other things, Brave Wind III supersonic anti-aircraft carrier missiles and has proposed 1.2 billion Taiwan dollars for their development, the Liberty Times said.

The island government is also pressing the United States to sell it 66 F-16 C/D fighter jets worth as much as 8 billion US dollars. Analysts believe Washington will bow to Beijing and reject the request.

Taiwan's parliament will decide over the next four months how to fund the military next year along with other budget deliberations.