Their comments highlighted the
mainland's rapid military development on
top of the current overwhelming
advantages compared with those of the
island and they also questioned the
ability of taiwan's arms industry to
produce the weapons. Taiwan's legislative authorities on
tuesday passed an extra budget worth 240
billion new taiwan dollars 8.63 billion
dollars for the island's navy and air
force to counter the chinese mainland's
military modernization and increasingly
aggressive behavior, taiwan news reported
on the same day.
To be spread out over five years the
spending covers the procurement of eight
weapon systems, coast-based anti-ship
missiles, anti-air missiles, long-range
precision missiles, vessels for the navy
and others for the coast guard, drones, wan chian air-to-ground cruise missiles
and xiangshang missiles. The report said
noting that the weapons will be
primarily produced in taiwan.
From technical and tactical points of
view these weapons indeed pose certain
asymmetrical threats to the coastal
regions of the chinese mainland and the
chinese people's Liberation Army (PLA), but
they cannot shake the huge military
power gap between the mainland and the
island, analysts said.
Taiwan's armed forces are planning to
arm the island into being a porcupine. These weapons are spines to the island
and apply asymmetric warfare strategies. For example using long-range supersonic
anti-ship missiles and land-attacked
cruise missiles to threaten the
mainland's coastal regions and warships
or using small chang-class corvettes and
other patrol vessels to counter the
mainland's large warships in maritime
guerilla warfare, Wei Dongshu a
beijing-based military expert told the
global times on wednesday.
The taiwan military wants to use these
weapons to resist reunification by force
and impede the pla's amphibious landing
forces, Wei said.
However taiwan secessionists are playing
with fire since there are a lot of
uncertainties concerning the new extra
budget, analysts pointed out. Wei said that taiwan's arms industry is
not well established enough to develop
and mass produce some of these advanced
weapons to meet the demands of its armed
forces in just five years and it is just
bragging about many of its capabilities.
The military strength of the chinese
mainland leads the island of taiwan by
far at present and the gap will be even
wider five years from now, analysts said.
Noting that the geopolitical situation
could also change drastically in the
period. no matter what weapons and equipment the
island's military gets the mainland
always has the capabilities to counter
them, Wei said.
Resisting reunification by force is
bound to meet a dead end, four PLA J-16 fighter jets entered
taiwan's self-proclaimed southwest air
defense identification zone on tuesday. According to a press release by the
island's defense authorities china recently also developed new cold
resistant clothing and equipment for
plateau operations.
In a move analyst
said on thursday will support border
defense troops stationed in high
altitude regions to overcome the harsh
winter. Upgrading clothing and equipment for a
second consecutive year shows the focus
of the chinese people's liberation army on its border defense troops quality
of life and combat capability amid a
border standoff with india, they said.
10 types of new clothing and equipment
developed by the Central Military Commission (CMC) logistics support
department are being delivered to the
border defense frontline, the PLA daily
reported on thursday.
Containing high technologies these warm
lightweight clothing and equipment are
tailored by military and civilian
experts and renowned companies and will
provide strong logistical support for
officers and soldiers who train and
conduct missions in harsh environments, the report said.
Since last year's commissioning of
customized cold resistant clothing and
equipment including sleeping bags down
training coats and down cotton padded
jackets and pants. The CMC logistics
support department continued researching
and developed this year's new equipment including a long version of a cotton
padded coat, a thermos flask, anti-fragment goggles, electrically
heated gloves, kneecaps and shoe pads and
a camouflage suit for snipers. The new coat uses optimized thermal
material and an improved design so it is
warmer and more practical in tactical
moves using lightweight high-strength
titanium alloy, the thermos flask has a
smart display of water temperature on
its cap.
