Taiwan Strait foes in 'secret meeting'

Analysts say the military balance across the Taiwan Strait may shift to Beijing's favor in three years

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan lawmakers held a secret meeting with top Chinese military officials in Beijing last month, according to media reports.

The talks were the first in recent years between such high-ranking officials, the China Times newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The two sides have boosted business links but their political and military leaders have not met since 1949 when the Communist Party won a civil war and took control of the mainland, The Associated Press reports.

Since the nationalists fled to the island, Taiwan has remained autonomous, resisting Beijing's rule. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province, to be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.

The Cross-Strait meeting came a month before a Pentagon report warned that China is looking at coercive moves to bring Taipei to terms quickly.

Report blasted

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Beijing has hit back at the report, and asked the United States not to send the "wrong signals" to Taiwan by playing up the military gap between China and the island.

On Tuesday, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Kong Quan blasted both the Pentagon report and the annual report presented to the U.S. Congress on Monday by the U.S.-China Security Review Commission.

Kong said the report to Congress had "very evil motives" because it reflected a "cold-war mentality." (Full story)

While Taiwan's military has admitted that China's recent arms build-up threatens peace in the region, it has boasted that the island is capable of thwarting any Chinese invasion.

One defense official told AP the island needs an island-wide missile defense system to counter China, which has over 300 missiles aimed at the island.

Secret meeting

While the June talks focused on "the development of Chinese naval power since the Sino-Japanese War of 1894," the two sides talked about how their militaries might work together, the newspaper report said, without giving details.

The China Times, one of the island's major daily newspapers, said the Taiwan team included ruling Democratic Progressive Party legislator Chen Chung-shin. Chen's office declined to confirm the report, according to AP.

Another legislator named in the report, Chen Shei-saint of the opposition Nationalist Party, confirmed he attended the meeting. His office told AP "various defense issues" were discussed.

The paper did not name the Chinese officers who attended the meeting.

'Tough challenge'

Taiwan says it is capable of defending the island

The landmark meeting comes as all eyes are watching the military balance across the Taiwan Strait.

"The peace in the Taiwan Strait is facing a tough challenge," Reuters news agency quoted military spokesman Huang Suey-sheng as saying in the island's first public comments on the Pentagon report.

"Communist China has never renounced the use of force against Taiwan and its military expansion is an indisputable fact."

The nation's armed forces have "comprehensive plans to thwart any invasion attempt by Communist China," Huang added.

The Pentagon says China has about 350 short-range ballistic missiles pointed at Taiwan, growing at about 50 missiles per year.

Taiwan had no intention of entering into an arms race with China or starting a war, Huang said, but he did say the country needed an island-wide missile defense system for early warnings of attacks and to stop missiles.

"In the future we'll need to buy systems from overseas or domestically manufacture them so we can aggressively create an island-wide missile defense system," Huang said.

Military balance

The balance of military power could weigh in Beijing's favor by 2005, Taiwan officials and many military analysts have told Reuters.

Last year, American President George W. Bush offered to sell the island a number of submarines and destroyers in the biggest U.S. arms deal for the island since 1992 when his father sold the country fighters.

But as Taiwan suffers from its worst recession in over ten years, many are questioning whether the island can afford the arms.

The United States sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region in 1996, after China fired missiles close to Taiwanese ports.