Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Thanks a lot Obama!...

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First off I did not vote for President Obama..

You really can't blame any of this mess for the ROC soley on President Obama. It started long ago. Remember the diesel subs the US was to sell to the ROC? How could that have ever happened? The US stopped building diesel subs long ago. And the F-16s..How many times has that deal changed. Yes my friends all this started long before Pres. Obama became president.

Normalized Relationship
The George W. Bush Administration continued the Clinton Administration’s initiative and
expanded the closer military ties at different levels. In April 2001, President Bush announced he
would drop the 20-year-old annual arms talks process used to discuss arms sales to Taiwan’s
military in favor of normal, routine considerations of Taiwan’s requests on an as-needed basis—
similar to interactions with other foreign governments.

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Want to read what the US says about Taiwan arms sales??? Start reading at page eight on this report below.

Aero_Wing_32 said:

Official - major delay on arm sales to Taiwan. We were a lot of observers noting that month after month nothing happened... During about 5 years, the ROC wasted energy with the USA, which officials are no more supporting Taiwan and the TRA as well. Ma has no more time to lose, he served a strategy leading to weakening us. Other ways must be put on the table now. Otherwise say farewell to Taiwan democracy. For good. Thanks a lot Obama!...

U.S. officials reportedly delaying arms sales to Taiwan
2011/04/01 12:21:08

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Do you seriously expect other people to defend you, while you can sit on your hands and reap the reward? If Taiwanese really love their democracy, then get up and defend it like everyone else.

In such case, Taiwan should put heck a lot more effort in developing its indigenous arms industry, instead of slamming it at all social levels and allow political infighting between parties to block defense budgets. Plus, the media and those "big mouths" should stop slamming the army at every opportunity, which we've grown accustomed to by now...

I talk to friends here in Taiwan all the time about developing military equipment here locally, nearly everyone I know is against putting money into the military saying it should go towards other projects. The future does not look for Taiwan's military.

druid84 said:

I talk to friends here in Taiwan all the time about developing military equipment here locally, nearly everyone I know is against putting money into the military saying it should go towards other projects. The future does not look for Taiwan's military.

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See that's what I'm talking about, too short-sighted they are, this current generation. All they've been thinking is that they only need to be the "damsel in distress", all they have to do is to scream like a little girl, and Uncle Sam will come to their aid without hesitation and free of charge.

Taiwan is an interesting country. I think that the unresolved matter with China has caused an element of denial about how dangerous their situation potentially is. Taiwanese are very much against unification but they don't want to have to pay for an independent military procurement strategy.

druid84 said:

I talk to friends here in Taiwan all the time about developing military equipment here locally, nearly everyone I know is against putting money into the military saying it should go towards other projects. The future does not look for Taiwan's military.

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Ok for a part. And if your friends belong to american Christian churches, or other peaceful waves, that's easy to understand. I know some of them also here sharing this view, but many want to save the precious democratic system built up in decades, also sometimes in blood.

But seriously, how can you say such a thing? So, why not dismantling the whole army?! National security, does it mean something to them? OMG. This just can't be serious.

Me I don't personally believe this, I wish Taiwan would care more about defense, I'm merely stating the opinion of people I have talked too. Quite a few people I have argued with say its pointless for Taiwan to spend on defence as China has such a large advantage. Also they are Taiwanese, some christian, most non christian. I'd say its about 50% for more military, 50% against. My personal thoughts are for a much more robust military, but political in fighting and mistrust is a large reason for the lack of military support.

And I've been wondering about something, the last military exercise when most of the missiles failed, were those mostly foreign, what was the performance of the local missiles?

Aero_Wing_32 said:

Ok for a part. And if your friends belong to american Christian churches, or other peaceful waves, that's easy to understand. I know some of them also here sharing this view, but many want to save the precious democratic system built up in decades, also sometimes in blood.

But seriously, how can you say such a thing? So, why not dismantling the whole army?! National security, does it mean something to them? OMG. This just can't be serious.

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Still, it's Taiwanese own doing to elect a bunch of politicians to stink the military at every turn, bickering about the budget, give only lip service to local arms R&D, and have the nerve to call it "result"; allowing your own media to lambast the military and call it civil duty; and your own fault to disown the military by using whatever means to dodge the draft instead of serving it like a man; worse squeal like a little girl and hopefully Uncle Sam rides to the rescue in shining armor and on a white horse, instead of man-up and truly take up the responsibility socially.

Taiwan should learn a lesson or two on this from Singapore...despite all things within and out, they still see conscription as a necessary of nation building and a rite of passage to turn boys into real men, and have true long term policy in terms of defense...of course for the last part would be nigh impossible for Taiwan to duplicate, you've elections too frequent that nobody would bother to draw up one, less to implement them (takes too long to bear fruit even if successful, and nobody wants the fruit to be claimed by anyone but themselves), leaving everyone too short sighted to do Taiwan and its defense policy any good.

In most cases I don't think conscription is a good idea, but in Taiwan's unique situation I do think it is necessary. It makes a large proportion of the population skilled in war, but in Taiwan it was pretty much useless, most men just cleaned their barracks and never handled live weaponry. Taiwan should learn a thing or two from small countries like Singapore and Sweden that build a large proportion of their military equipment indigenously. With Taiwans high tech industry they could do great things here, but lack of political will and the peoples support for an increase in the defence budget stalls things.

If you remember what happened during the SARS pandemic you can tell a lot about their people - whereas other places the medical personnel would dutifully remain at their station, in Taiwan they were the first to run...

And about building up local defense industry, we can see it won't fit well to Taiwan's mentality: defense industry takes a lot of money and decades of continual input to make it grow, with the end-user back the effort with "locally made first" policy, plus a full range of heavy industries established to provide necessary material, critical when you can expect foreign source would be unreliable.

But Taiwanese only want to see investment mature quickly, best done cheaply...end-user prefer imported models, and with widespread "not-in-my-backyard" mentality you can pretty much forget about heavy industry too.