( KWIC Dec. 17 Toronto ) Although according to the Hong Kong media, China may open its most sensitive military facilities to the Taiwanese visitors and in the meantime, may consider inviting the military scholars and retired high-ranking military officials of Taiwan to exchange views with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for the purpose of relaxing the hostility between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, yet there are indications that as far as the security issue is concerned, the potential exists for the hostility to increase due to the decision made by Taiwan to expedite the preparations for the complete replacement of Taiwan's "three-generation-old weapons", with the effort including a plan to import the US-made "Patriot 3" missiles and "Aegis" destroyers.This year, the PLA has continued to study and discuss the feasibility of the "future island debarkation campaign" from the perspectives of both the theory and the actual combat. At the same time, the principles for various campaigns have also been worked out in light of the characteristics of the changes in the weapons and equipment of the Taiwanese army. In addition, the PLA has also publicly emphasized within a certain scope that the future "island debarkation campaign" which is intended to realize the unification of the motherland will be a large-scale joint campaign of the ground army, navy, and air force, involving the best troops and weapons.
A campaign scholar of the Chinese army believes in a relevant discussion that so far as the island debarkation campaign is concerned, the prime importance should be attached to fighting a battle both quickly and stealthily. They hold that the submarine troops should be used for the first strike of war. They place water mines at the enemy's ports in advance, thus initially forming a blockade network on the sea.
For the Chinese army, the international situation is complicated and there are various uncertainties with naval battles. It is highly possible that the strong enemy will get involved in the battles by means of providing Taiwan with information and the more advanced military equipment, dispatching submarines to launch sneak attacks on the Chinese warships from under the water, and setting up the restricted air space or ocean zones etc.. With all these factors taken into consideration, the Chinese navy can not stand such a war of attrition and needs to fight a quick battle, the PLA’scholars indicated so.
In terms of the policies, on the other hand, the Chinese army has always stressed that the effective actions should be taken to prevent the serious tendency or sign of independence even though the "independence of Taiwan" does not become a reality and only the tendency or sign exists.
As for the actual preparations, in order to narrow the technical gap from its Taiwanese counterpart, the Chinese army has made on its own or imported, in a planned way, a large number of high-performance weapons, which include the Su27 fighter planes, the "Sovremenny" and "Lu Hai" 6000-ton-class destroyers, and the "636" and "Song"-class conventional submarines. It is obvious that China has attached great importance to the consolidation of the fighting capabilities of its navy and air force. Meanwhile, China has also tried to enhance the development of its airborne force, rapid reaction force, and the other special forces. With the resumption of the dialogues between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, China has never stopped the preparations for the "military struggle".
At the initial stage, however, it is possible that China will invite the retired high-ranking military officials and military scholars of Taiwan to exchange their views with the retired PLA scholars on the issues in certain areas. Even before this year, some Taiwanese military scholars were invited to attend the "International Symposium on Sun Zi's Military Strategy and Tactics" that was held in China. A Chinese scholar of international studies indicated to the KWIC reporter that from his personal point of view, it was necessary for the non-governmental scholars of security affairs of both China and Taiwan to hold the such exchanges. However, he stressed that such exchanges were not totally identical in nature to the high-level security dialogues both between China and Japan and between China and the USA. This is because the Sino-Japanese military exchange is the result of the general improvement in the Sino-US security relationship and is a component part of the multi-national relationship of trust. However, any dialogues between China and Taiwan on security affairs should not contain any "international" color and they should be "totally internal dialogues and exchanges". Therefore, the same source didn't feel that even the "International Symposium on Sun Zi's Strategy and Tactics" was suitable for the exchange between the scholars of the two sides.
Obviously, the Chinese scholar of military strategy hopes that a special non-governmental mechanism will be established for the security dialogue between China and Taiwan. Such a dialogue is similar to the annual "non-governmental dialogue on security protection" between China and Japan. Thus, the non-governmental security experts will be invited to attend the special meetings on a regular basis. Therefore, what China will do in this regard after 1999 merits more attention ( John Wu ).
