Taiwan accuses China of "terrorist" tactics

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Christian Wright <cw () c4i org> 

http://asia.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=IK4RYIWRN5QMUCRBAEZSFEY?type=topnews&StoryID=1423490

["Unrestricted Warfare" is at: http://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf  - WK]


09 September, 2002

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian accused China on
Sunday of intimidating the island with "terrorist" tactics in comments
likely to fuel Beijing's fury.

"Communist China has accelerated development of 'unrestricted warfare'
similar to terrorist methods," Chen said, apparently referring to the
book "Unrestricted Warfare" by two Chinese colonels who advocate
resorting to computer viruses and other types of "dirty war" to bring
the enemy to heel.

"It has seriously threatened our national security and the welfare of
the people of Taiwan. We sternly condemn this and urge our countrymen
to heighten vigilance," Chen said in a videotaped speech during a top
security meeting about anti-terrorism. He did not elaborate.

Taiwan military analysts are divided over whether China, one of five
permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, would resort to
terrorist tactics against the island. But it was the first time Chen
had accused China of resorting to "terrorist" methods.

In their 1999 book, the two colonels argued that bombings, kidnappings
and assassinations do not go far enough and that sowing fear and
uncertainty is more effective than killing.

"The battlefield will be everywhere," they wrote. "There is nothing in
the world today that cannot become a weapon."

President Chen made the accusation one month after he riled Beijing
when he said Taiwan and China were "one country on each side" and
backed legislation for a referendum on formal independence from China.

Beijing considers Taiwan a rebel province and has threatened to attack
the democratic island of 23 million if it formally declares
independence or drags its feet on unification talks.

Taipei and Beijing have been military and diplomatic rivals since the
end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, but their economies have become
increasingly intertwined since detente began in the late 1980s. Taiwan
businessmen have invested up to $100 billion on the mainland.

Chen, whose landmark election in 2000 alarmed Beijing because of his
pro-independence stand, offered to help China democratise by training
Chinese election officials and inviting them to observe the island's
polls.

There was no immediate comment from Beijing.

Chen said Taiwan would set up a group to monitor human rights abuses
in China. He also said Taiwan's state-controlled media would broadcast
news about the island's democratic experience to the mainland.

He also pledged support for the U.S. campaign against terrorism after
the attacks on U.S. landmarks last September.

The security meeting was attended by the island's vice president,
premier, defence minister, top China policymaker and national security
chief.

China has nuclear weapons, but Taiwan is armed to the teeth with
billions of dollars worth of U.S. and French-made fighters and capable
of giving the 2.5 million-strong People's Liberation Army, the world's
biggest fighting force, a bloody nose in any conventional slug-out.




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