Part 1 Taiwan's Development of the SSM Deserves Attention

KWIC October 15: After nearly five years of impasse, a bilateral talk was held between the nongovernmental leading figures of both China and Taiwan. However, neither side gave up the strategic consideration of the "military struggle" as the most important bargaining counter in this talk. At the time of the peace talk, both sides were taking vigorous action for arms expansion.

A scholar of China's Military Science Institute believes that Taiwan may decide in the near future to develop the ground-to-ground missiles in order to enhance its capability of confrontation against China.

The movement of Taiwan to develop the ground-to-ground missiles with a range of over 1000 kilometers indicates that there exists the danger that the "powerful massive distruction weapons" will be further proliferated in this region, thus including the whole Okinawa and part of Kyushu of Japan within their range of launch.

Taiwan is one of the few Asian countries that develop both the ground-to-ground missiles and the BMD at the same time. The countries that are making the similar efforts include China, India, and Israel.

The Central Science Institute of Taiwan is still in the process of vigorously developing on its own the anti-tactical ballistic missile defense system. From July 15 to 20, 1998, a launch was conducted on the missile testing base in Jiu Peng of Ping Dong. Under the guidance of the "Chang Bai" phased array radar, the interceptive system transformed from the original "Tiangong-II" ground-to-air missile intercepted the target missile at a speed four times the speed of sound.

In the meantime, Taiwan has also decided that the development of the ground-to-ground missiles, which include the long-range search radar with a reconnaissance range of 1000 kilometers, this program will be considered the major national defence task in the next ten years. It is said that Taiwan has already started to develop the "Tianji" short range ground-to-ground missiles so far.( John Wu)

Part 2 Taiwan Accelerates the Development of Sophisticated Weapons

KWIC news Toronto October 15: While vigorously developing the ground-to-ground missiles and the TMD system, Taiwan also works hard to develop the air-to-ground cruise missiles. The most important characteristic of all these developments is that the technical researches of all the new weapons reflect the international development direction of the sophisticated science and technology in the 21st century, for example, the long-range ground-to-ground cruise missiles and the supersonic ship-to-ship missiles etc..

On the basis of the Shiongfen II ship-to-ship missile, Taiwan is on the process of developing its own the supersonic ship-to-ship missile, i.e. the Shiongfen III system, and trial-launched it in April of 1998. With the combination of the technology of both the ramjet engine and rocket booster, the air-to-ground missiles that are launched from fighter planes may be developed in the future to increase the feasibility of the missiles in the tactical applications.

This year, the Chongshan Scientific Research Institute is also developing the Shiongfen II E cruise missiles, which are said to have the air-to-ground attack capability. The new turbofan engine is used to extend the range of this missile. In the meantime, an air-to-surface missile was also developed on the basis of the Shiongfen II missile. With the inertial guidance used with GPS, this missile can be launched as far as 170 kilometers away to attack the targets on the southeast coast of China( John Wu).

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