Missile unit deployed in Taipei after getting upgraded in US: report

The first batch of the Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) missile launchers that Taiwan previously sent to the United States for upgrade has been secretly sent back to the country after being upgraded to the more advanced PAC-3 configuration, according to the United Evening News (UEN) report yesterday.

Taiwan to Develop Precision-Guided Missile

Taiwan plans to develop a long-distance precision-guided missile which would be able to strike military bases along China’s southeastern coastline in the event of war, a legislator said Monday.

Taiwan feels “threatened” by Chinese missiles – defence minister

Taipei: Defence Minister Kao Hua-chu rebutted Friday [29 July] remarks by a Beijing official that China’s missiles are not aimed at Taiwan, saying that “it is hard for Taiwan’s people to buy his story.”

Taiwan Develops Advanced Missiles

Taiwan's Hsiung Feng III missile displayed during Taiwan's national day parade in Taipei. Taiwan rolled out its top military weaponry with the aim of stirring China and boosting nationalist fervor

This year Taiwan started to deploy supersonic anti-ship missiles in response to China’s growing naval arsenal. Those third generation Hsiung Feng missiles that are now positioned on some 20 ships point to a strengthening in Taiwan’s normally low-key domestic missile production. But its military might is growing at a time when relations with Beijing are better than ever.

China’s Missiles Targeted at Taiwan to Increase to 2,000

Despite efforts to restore military reconciliation through pullout of missiles and confidence building mechanism, China is said to reinforce its defense along its southeast coastlines by increasing the existing some 1,500 missiles to at least 1,800 with an aim to counter America’s potential presence in the Taiwan Strait, said an intelligence senior official, according to Liberty Times report today.

Even if China is determined to dismount its missiles targeted at Taiwan to show its goodwill in the maintenance of cross-strait stability, the scheduled production plans of missiles will continue. A number of missile brigades wll still be established. And in fact, some of the exercises toward Taiwan are moved inland or replaced by war games, leading to the impression that the frequency of drills have been lowered, the anonymous official said.

Taiwan to Test Long Range Missile: Report

A report recently released announced that they would be testing  a missile that could reach Beijing for the first time ever. Taiwan’s defense ministry immediately denied the announcement but said they were working on “various weapons systems”.

TAIPEI — Taiwan is to test a missile for the first time that could hit Beijing, a report said Wednesday.

Obama Calls for Joint Action to Safeguard Nuclear Stocks

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev and President Obama

President Obama called on world leaders “not simply to talk, but to act” to secure or destroy vulnerable stockpiles of nuclear materials. Obama told fellow leaders Tuesday morning that it was time “not simply to make pledges, but to make real progress for the security of our people.”

Saying that the prospect of nuclear terrorism had emerged as one of the greatest threats to global security, President Obama called on world leaders “not simply to talk, but to act” to secure or destroy vulnerable stockpiles of nuclear materials.

Mr. Obama, addressing a plenary session Tuesday of the 47-nation nuclear security conference he had convened here, told fellow leaders Tuesday morning that it was time “not simply to make pledges, but to make real progress for the security of our people,” according to excerpts of his prepared remarks released by the White House. “All this, in turn, requires something else, something more fundamental,” Mr. Obama continued in his remarks. “It requires a new mindset — that we summon the will, as nations, as partners, to do what this moment in history demands.”

Taiwan Says Researching High-Tech Missiles

Taiwan has announced it is researching development of missiles. Taiwan is seeking to shore up a balance of power against China, which has threatened to attack if the island tries to declare independence and outpaces it in military buildup.  The United States is Taiwan’s main arms supplier and therefore is proceeding with caution, not to upset China.  Though, the United States is obliged under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to help in the island’s defense.

Taiwan is researching development of high-tech missiles on a road to “peace through strength” with China, military officials on the self-ruled island said on Tuesday.

The notion of producing its own missiles is being advanced as Taiwan’s main arms supplier, the United States, exercises caution on arms sales to the island, sure to enrage China as Washington and Beijing try to ease political and trade tensions.

China Testing Ballistic Missile ‘Carrier-Killer’

Chinese Medium Range Ballistic Missile

Admiral Robert Willard, PACOM commander, disclosed that China was “developing and testing a conventional… [medium-range ballistic missile] designed specifically to target aircraft carriers.”  While the system had been heard in rumor and speculation for sometime, this was the first official acknowledgment of its existence.  If deployed, Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles would be the first capable of targeting a moving aircraft-carrier from a long-range. This would almost certainly shift the balance of power in the Pacific.

Last week, Adm. Robert Willard, the head of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), made an alarming but little-noticed disclosure. China, he told legislators, was “developing and testing a conventional anti-ship ballistic missile based on the DF-21/CSS-5 [medium-range ballistic missile] designed specifically to target aircraft carriers.”

What, exactly, does this mean? Evidence suggests that China has been developing an anti-ship ballistic missile, or ASBM, since the 1990s. But this is the first official confirmation that it has advanced to the stage of actual testing.

With Defense Test, China Shows Displeasure of U.S.

China Flexes its muscle and tests its first land-based missile defense system. Are they showing their displeasure with the Taiwan arms deal or is it just poor timing? In the China-US relationship, very few things are ever coincidental.

BEIJING — China said late Monday that it had successfully tested the nation’s first land-based missile defense system, announcing the news in a brief dispatch by Xinhua, the official news agency. “The test is defensive in nature and is not targeted at any country,” the item said.Even if news accounts on Tuesday did not provide details about the test — and whether it destroyed its intended target — Chinese and Western analysts say there is no mistaking that the timing of the test, coming amid Beijing’s fury over American arms sales to Taiwan, was largely aimed at the White House.

In recent days, state media have been producing a torrent of articles condemning the sale of Patriot air defense equipment to Taiwan. China views the self-ruled island as a breakaway province, separated since the civil war of the 1940s, and sees arms sales as interference in an internal matter.

The Defense and Foreign Ministries have released a half-dozen warnings over the weapons deal, saying it would have grave consequences for United States-China relations. A columnist in Global Times, a populist tabloid, urged readers come up with ways to retaliate against the United States.

Writing in the newspaper Study Times, Maj. Gen. Jun Yinan said China had the power to strike back. “We must take countermeasures to make the other side pay a corresponding price and suffering corresponding punishment,” wrote General Jun, a professor at China’s National Defense University.

Most analysts doubt the Chinese will seek to punish the United States in a significant way.

“For the Chinese, selling arms to Taiwan feels like a slap in the face,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of United States-Chinese relations at People’s University in Beijing. “I think the government expected something different from Obama, especially so soon after his visit to China.”

The White House said it was simply fulfilling a deal that was negotiated during the Bush administration. It also pointed out that the sale, approved by the Pentagon last week, omits F-16 fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters, a concession to Beijing.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking in California on Monday, said she thought the strain in relations would be brief and mild. “It doesn’t go off the rails when we have differences of opinions,” she said.

Relations may get bumpier in the coming weeks when President Obama meets with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader whom China accuses of being a separatist, and President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan makes a brief visit to the United States. Overseas visits by Taiwanese officials invariably irk Beijing.

Arthur Ding, a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Taipei, the Taiwanese capital, said China might have thought its growing economic power and the improving cross-strait relations fostered by Mr. Ma during his 20 months in office might have persuaded the United States to put off any weapons deal.

“Perhaps Beijing has unrealistic expectations,” he said. “I think they imagined their influence is greater than it is.”

For all the saber-rattling over the arms sale, some analysts say the official invective and anti-missile demonstration may have been largely directed at domestic audiences.

Zhu Feng, deputy director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Peking University, described China’s missile defense system as experimental and “not really meaningful” and said the test’s real purpose was less a show of deterrence than an opportunity for its army to strut.

Despite China’s newfound confidence, he said, the government was increasingly frustrated by its inability to influence the United States on an issue that had bedeviled Beijing for decades.

“China still lacks the leverage to force the White House to stop these sales,” he said. “So they feel like they must make a lot of noise.”

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