Pan-Blues Throttle Missile Production

Reuters reported that the pan-Blues in Taiwan voted to throttle the budget to produce cruise missiles capable of hitting targets in China.....

Taiwan opposition lawmakers have voted to slash the budget to produce cruise missiles that could strike Chinese targets such as Shanghai, effectively freezing the programme which had aimed to begin mass production next year.

Lawmakers from the Nationalist Party feared approval of the missile's production budget would needlessly antagonise rival China, which views the island as a rebel province to be unified with the mainland -- by force if necessary.

"I am afraid it would send wrong signals to all concerned, particularly when Chen Shui-bian's administration is recklessly pushing towards the red line," Su Chi, a senior Nationalist Party member of the parliament's National Defence Committee, told Reuters.

Who is Su Chi? Another pan-Blue with a long history of making nonsense allegations, which should have earned him a cold shoulder from Reuters, even though he headed up the Mainland Affairs Council in the 1990s. His latest efforts have put him in the news recently for claiming that Taiwan was building nuclear weapons.

Su said that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had told the Ministry of National Defense (MND)-affiliated Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology to develop a nuclear weapon.

He also said that nuclear experts and a former national defense minister from a country equipped with nuclear weapons had been invited to discuss the issue.

Besides developing a nuclear weapon, Su said Chen was also pushing for the mass production of the locally developed Hsiung Feng II-E cruise missile.

Su also said that Chen would seek political asylum in the US to protect himself from possible imprisonment over his role in the special allowance case when his presidential term comes to an end next year.

"With the development of the Hsiung Feng II-E and nuclear weapons, we are becoming another North Korea," said Su, a senior KMT member of the legislature's National Defense Committee.

Taiwan is another North Korea? Note the imputation of madness as well as dictatorship to President Chen by that comparison, both common KMT claims. Su Chi's allegations, as he admitted yesterday, were not backed by any evidence.

During an interview with the Central News Agency later on Friday evening, Su acknowledged that he had no evidence to back his claims, eventually conceding that he had drawn his conclusions based on "inference."

He said that he had inferred that the government had launched a nuclear weapons program based on information he has "accumulated over the years, as well as on observations and an understanding of the international situation."

Su said that the remarks he claimed to have overheard were "the last straw" and had brought him to a final conclusion.

Su said "the government's intention to develop nuclear weapons" was a "big change," adding that he felt an obligation to "disclose this information."

It's humorous to note Su Chi giving yet another example of the pan-Blue obsession with Chen Sbui-bian in this farrago of hogwash (OMIGAWD: "he's going to get political asylum in the US to avoid prosecution!") -- but why would anyone make such nonsense obligations? After all, Taiwan's nuke program was shut down years ago.

The answer lies in the missile program that Su Chi was talking about in the Reuters piece. Here's something positive for the DPP: a forward step for national defense, and a credit to the ruling party. But the pan-Blues blocked slashed it, showing that the nation they serve isn't Taiwan. Hence, to divert attention from the fact that the pan-Blues are slashing Taiwan's defenses, the crazed allegations that Taiwan is making nuclear weapons are made, leading to an avalanche of media coverage for this titillating claim. Remember, legislators in Taiwan are rational and there are sound reasons why they do bizarre things. For a previous example of this type of nonsense, see the cadet sex scandal.

Taiwan] [defense] [KMT] [media]