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China will have 800 missiles aimed at Taiwan by 2005
Tuesday, August 10, 2004 TAIPEI: China will have 800 missiles aimed at Taiwan by 2005, Vice President Annette Lu said on Monday, defending a controversial statement that the island and its giant communist foe were in a state of "quasi-war". That would be a substantial increase from the 500 missiles that Taiwan says China already has set up along its southeastern coast in preparation for a possible military showdown to take back the island it views as a renegade province. "More information has indicated the situation in the Taiwan Strait has entered into a very sensitive stage. I described it as on the verge of a quasi-war," said the outspoken Lu, among Taipei's fiercest critics of China. "Mainland China has accelerated its missile deployment. By next year, the number of missiles will likely reach 800 and it is growing at a speed faster than we have expected," she said in a briefing with foreign media reporters. Lu said her "quasi-war" description last Friday, which prompted President Chen Shui-bian's office to issue a rare denial to cool confrontational rhetoric with China, was an "objective description of the fact". Chen said last November that China has deployed 500 missiles against Taiwan and is adding to them at a rate of one every six days. To meet that threat, he hopes parliament will approve a T$610 billion (US$18 billion) budget to buy US weapons. Lu called for the world to treat the crisis in the Taiwan Strait more seriously. She invited representatives from more than 20 countries to attend a conference in Taipei from August 13 to 15 to discuss democracy and regional security. "We will not provoke China, but we hope China will not take any irrational military actions against us," Lu said. Let's do the math: 800 missiles @ ~$500,000 each = $400,000,000. Time to delete $400,000,000 worth of foreign aid, health care, anti-AIDS funding and whatever other forms of external cash inflow are coming to China. Any money we send them only frees up more spending on missiles. Too bad no one seems able to make this connection while they feed at China's all-you-can-eat cheap labor trough. Taiwan is being knifed on the altar of big business profit and campaign funding by those who make money from trade with China. That would be WalMart, Circuit City, The Good Guys and so many more. This is political hypocrisy at it's sleaziest. Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-10 |
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