Must-Ask Question: China’s Missiles targeting Taiwan

Radio Taiwan International (RTI) quotes Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou as saying in a press conference after his meeting with Chinese state chairman Xi Jinping that he brought up the issue of Chinese missiles aiming at Taiwan. According to Ma, Xi said that the missile deployments were a comprehensive arrangement and not targeted at the people of Taiwan [「部署是整體性，不是針對台灣人民」].

RTI also quotes from a Central News Agency (CNA) interview with the founder of a Canadian military magazine, Kanwa (漢和防務評論), Andrei Pinkov (平可夫). Pinkov reportedly said that clearly, China’s missiles, and land and naval forces were targeting Taiwan.

To expect Beijing to remove these deployments would be difficult:

[Pinkov] said, if you want the removal of missiles be implemented, the mainland will certainly demand the building of mutual military trust. “If there’s no trust built, how can the missiles be removed?” Also, where to store the removed stuff? Just a while ago, the mainland has announced to cut 300,000 military staff. That needs to be digested. If you make more cuts, how should they deploy the staff?

他說，撤飛彈的事情若要實際落實，大陸一定會要求建立雙方軍事互信，「互信沒建立，怎麼撤飛彈？」此外，撤除的東西要往哪擺？大陸先前宣布裁軍30萬人，人員都可能還在消化，若又再撤，人員要怎麼安排？

Pinkov said that although most of the international community viewed the Ma-Xi meeting favorably, but, he concluded, if this was really followed by the two sides establishing some military interaction, America might increase its restrictions on arms sales to Taiwan, and Japan, too, could become more vigilant about Taiwan. All these were problem Taiwan could face [under such circumstances].

平可夫表示，雖然國際社會對馬習會多是樂觀其成，但兩岸雙方若隨後在軍事上真的有一些互動，他推論，美國對台軍售的限制可能會更多，日本對台灣也會開始有戒心，這都是台灣可能面臨的問題。

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Tags: America, China, Communist Party of China, cross-strait relations, international, Japan, KMT, Ma Ying-jeou, military, Radio Taiwan International, Singapore, Taiwan, Xi Jinping