Taiwan to cut troops by 16 pct as China ties warm

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http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-38520720090316

Taiwan to cut troops by 16 pct as China ties warm
By Ralph Jennings


TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan will cut its troop numbers by about 16 percent over the next five years, officials said on Monday, under a new, China-friendly president at the same time as building a leaner, more efficient fighting unit.

The Defence Ministry will reduce Taiwan's military police to a command centre under the army, part of a long-term effort to cut troops from a 1970s Cold War high of about 600,000 to 210,500 in 2014, going for quality over quantity, military sources said.

China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled, democratic Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's Communists won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to the island. Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary.

But since President Ma Ying-jeou took office in Taiwan in May, tensions have eased as the two sides sign trade and transit deals. Ma is pressured at home to make peace with China without getting too close politically.

Taiwan has also cut annual live-fire military drills to once every two years and reduced its 2009 defence budget under Ma.

Taiwan also seeks the troop cut to streamline its military, switching to a well-trained volunteer force with improved technology such as modern U.S. weapons, military sources say.

Taiwan must stay up to date as China's armed forces could hit Taiwan with "informational warfare", upsetting the island's legal system, official communications and "psychology", the ministry said in a report released on Monday.

"In the past few years, the Chinese Communists have incorporated these three 'non-armed strategies' into their ideology...to help reach their military objectives," the ministry's Quadrennial Defense Review states。
Separately, the United States has declined to make a long-awaited sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan for fear of upsetting China, Taiwan's parliament speaker said last week.

The United States switched diplomatic allegiance from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, recognising "one China", but remains the island's biggest ally and arms supplier.