Taiwan: Reappraisal of Military Strategy Begins With Troop Reduction
Taipei shows goodwill to the Peoples Republic of China by downsizing its army, after relations soured last year because of Beijing’s objections to the Taiwanese arms deal with the United States despite the formidable Chinese missile arsenal along the Taiwan Straits.
Below is an article published by All Headline News:
In what could warm relations with China after controversial arms deal with the United States last year, Taiwan has announced to reduce number of its troops by 9,200 this year [2011] as part of its plan to trim Taiwan's armed forces’ size by 60,000 within next five years.
Presently, Taiwan has 275,000 soldiers in its large army thanks to decades of its tensions with China, which still considers it as their territory despite the two sides divided in 1949 after the deadly civil war.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese Defense Ministry added that the slashing troops’ size doesn’t mean that the island would not look for high-tech and powerful weapons similar to the one it acquired from the U.S. last year [2010]. Washington sold Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters and equipment for Taiwan's F-16 fleet in a deal last year, which severed relations between the two Asian countries as well as between China and the U.S.
"The era of maintaining a huge number of forces has gone. Defense capability is no longer determined by the number of troops," the ministry's acting spokesman Lo Shau-ho told AFP.
