PRATAS ISLANDS, TaiwanJuly 25 16:43 KYODO
Few of Taiwan's outlying islands are as far-flung as this postcard-perfect atoll, but fewer still reflect so plainly the sea changes in relations across the Taiwan Strait and in the island's military.
Located in the South China Sea, the atoll of the Pratas Islands, with its azure waters and white, sandy beaches, was until recently a frontline military garrison.
Also until recently, China reportedly considered taking the islets by force as a practice run for an all-out offensive against Taiwan proper.
But recent moves to demilitarize the Pratas serve as one of the clearest signs yet that tensions in the strait have eased dramatically.
''As relations with China improve, this place has become more a national park than a military outpost,'' says Liu Kuo-lie, the Coast Guard commander of the Pratas, referring to the establishment last year of the Dongsha Marine National Park on the atoll.
Since 2000, Taiwan's military began withdrawing its some 600 troops from the main islet, which boasts a sandy flat long enough for an airstrip.
Military cargo planes still take off and land beside a brackish lagoon, but it is by and large Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration that, with merely 200 personnel, currently manages the outcrop of coral reefs and terra firma.
Chinese military vessels, Liu says, have not ventured near the atoll since the late 1990s.
Pratas authorities, for their part, typically offer refuge to Chinese civilian boats in the lagoon when storms catch them on the high seas, he says.
''I think the main reason why the Coast Guard took control of the atoll is because cross-strait relations were not as nervous,'' he adds.
Located some 400 kilometers southwest of Taiwan, the Pratas lie near key sea shipping lanes and within comfortable striking distance of China's People's Liberation Army. Chinese attack submarines, according to local reports, often crept near the atoll in sly shows of force before the new millennium.
After tensions flared in 2005, when China passed legislation threatening Taiwan with war should it formally split from the mainland, the atoll again reflected the shift in cross-strait atmospherics.
Taiwan's then defense minister, Lee Jye, said the Pratas' Coast Guard authorities ''lacked the firepower'' necessary to stave off Chinese aggression.
''There was talk of putting troops back on the atoll, but that's all it was -- talk,'' says a military media liaison officer on condition of anonymity. ''There isn't any need to be provocative by redeploying troops.''
But, the officer adds, concerns over whether Taiwan even had the troop strength to pull off the redeployment also led to the decision against it.
Since 1997, Taipei has roughly halved its 450,000 troops and is gradually moving from a conscript-based military to one comprising mostly volunteers.
Reports abound that troops are increasingly stretched thin, but current Defense Minister Chen Chao-min said he seeks further cuts to lower troop strength to some 200,000 personnel.
Inaugurated May 20, President Ma Ying-jeou, of the ''China-friendly'' Nationalist Party (KMT), appears more interested in achieving breakthroughs with Beijing than in strengthening the military.
In fact, some pundits view Ma's planned troop cuts, failure to further fund an indigenous fighter jet program and an alleged freeze on arms deals from the United States as part of his agenda to court Beijing.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, with the former since claiming the latter as part of its territory and vowing to pull the self-ruled island into its political fold, by force if necessary.
Citing warming ties with China, the Ma administration reportedly requested that the United States temporarily halt the procurement process for some US$11 billion worth of U.S. weapons packages earmarked for Taiwan, a charge Ma denies. Also failing to go forward is a would-be deal for 66 U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to replace the island's aging fleet of military aircraft.
But while the F-16s package fails to materialize, Ma's Cabinet has declined funding for upgrades to Indigenous Defense Fighters, locally developed jets that emulate as much as possible F-16s and foster self-reliance in air defense.
Back on the Pratas, Interior Ministry officials and marine biologists are gradually replacing servicemen as the threat of war fades and the military loses its appetite for modernization and domination over China.
A metaphor punctuating that appetite loss was one park official's recent account of discovering a shark in the lagoon, roaming near the banks at dusk. ''We skinned a mouse, let its blood drip into the water and even threw it near the shark,'' he says, gesturing tossing a mouse by its limp tail. ''The shark just sniffed at it a bit and swam away.''
==Kyodo
Posts
