 Welcome to Asian Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. Our show today is today's Armed Forces of the Republic of China. And my guest is Dr. Alexander Huang, who is chairman of the Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies and also professor at Danjiang University. Moreover, Dr. Wang writes a column for a very leading time on newspaper called The United Daily News. Welcome to Asian Review. It's great to have you, Alexander. I'm glad you could be with us today. I know you just got back from the U.S. and you're still a little tired and a little jet lagging. So thank you. Thank you. It's my pleasure. Great. Great. Well, let's sort of get right into it. Tsaiyuan has a very different approach to the military than to Ma Yingzhou. Could you describe a little bit of that difference to us for the benefit of our viewers? The difference is, to put it in a simple way, is a time and heart that's spent with the uniform services. President Ma Yingzhou's make people, or especially the uniform services, believe that he took it for granted because it's a KMT president. The Army had always been part of the establishment of a long KMT rule. So people in the military feel that Ma Yingzhou did not pay enough time and attention to the military need, and they believe that Taiwan's security is based on a sound mainland policy rather than a strong armed forces. Tsaiyuan tried to change that and had visited barracks, air bases, naval bases much more frequent than President Ma Yingzhou, and had spoken to their heart and to their need. So it is widely considered that Tsaiyuan had worked very hard to win the support of the armed forces. That's my impression too. It seems to me, not to sound too critical, but there seems to be a morale problem in the Republic of China Armed Forces, and she seems to realize that and seems to want to address it. Do I have something there? Yeah, I think if we talk about morale problem, there are probably three causes. The first one is the growing imbalance across the Taiwan Strait. The China has become pretty strong, and the mounting threat is one of them. China has a psychological impact. Second is that for almost 20 years, Taiwan did not have a notable defense budget increase. So the military felt that they have been underpaid or under-equipped, compared to other countries to man and equip the forces. And the third one is more recently, it did not appear before. That was the pension reform that President Tsai Ing-wen now is taking on. The pension reform will probably reduce about 15 to 30 percent of the possible monthly pension that they are currently get. Of course, there is a pension crisis, but that also had an impact. That's very interesting. It will reduce the level of their current pension. So if you're already a retired rock military officer, or enlisted, or whatever, and you're getting, I don't know, whatever amount it is, that's going to be reduced by up to 30 percent. Yes, because of, you know, it's a complicated calculation system, like every other country. But to put it in a simple way, that the pension system of all military, government service, and ordinary workers, all pension systems are approaching bankruptcy in the next 10 to 20 years. You know, previous presidents did not want to take on this issue. I think President Tsai Ing-wen is brave enough to touch on it. As I said, it had negative impact. It has not concluded how it's going to be reduced, but it's on the way. I agree with what you're saying. This is really a problem that should have been addressed by the Kuomintang when it was in power, but they kind of kicked the can down the road and kicked it into her lap. And I give her credit for taking on this really difficult issue, because as you're suggesting, if something is not done and then the pension fund is going to go broke and everybody's going to lose out, it's just a shame to me that at the same time she's trying to build up the morale of the military, she's coming out with a pension reform. And I've noticed in the Taipei Times, as of late, there's been some pretty big demonstrations carried out by former military people opposing what she's trying to do. There are others from police, from firefighters, and high school teachers, because the pension reform is a reform across the board. And so it generated a huge protest in Taiwan, but the President seems to me is determined to carry on. Good for her. Now, you know, typically it's said that the social stability, the political stability of Taiwan depends on the soldiers, the bureaucrats, and the teachers. Is that changing, is that sort of a changing phenomenon of Taiwan politics? It's too early to say, but it does have an impact. I do not want to think of or allege that this pension reform will change their loyalty to the country. But there are growing pains in the household of those careers or professions, because there are previous calculations of family development, buying a house, and everything else, or giving funds for kids to study in the United States. All their plan needs to be readjusted. It seems to me another factor that probably touches on this morale issue in the military is, my impression is, from having been in the military to talk to a lot of military people, military people like modern new weapons, they really get off on that. And it seems like what the U.S. sells to Taiwan is usually at least a generation behind the times. And on the other hand, when Taiwan got the Apaches from the U.S., and the type of Apache they got was really cutting edge. I think the U.S. was the only other country that had it. I saw a swelling of pride in the Taiwan military, and they wanted to show it off and bring all their relatives to test it out, to go and test flights and stuff like that, which they shouldn't have done. But I think it showed a sense of pride that just kind of wheeled up. And I think you agree with what I'm saying. And now with the Trump administration, it seems like, okay, the Obama administration was going to sell a weapons package to Taiwan, just before Obama left. And then somebody in the National Security Council upended that. And then Trump said he was going to maybe supplement that weapons package and sell it to Taiwan. And now that seems to be on deep freeze, because Trump thinks he's super buddies with Xi Jinping. But I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. Do you have any recent news about this weapons package, whether it's going to go through or not, or what's your take? Yeah, the package that you refer to is a package that President Barack Obama did not feel that he should sign it off and send the notification to the Congress right before his presidential term ends. So he left the decision for the next administration. To my knowledge, President Trump's White House are looking at the package that we were talking about. But there are different views. Some people said that this is a kind of package or request from the past administration from Taiwan. The DPP may want to save money and pull all the resources together and to introduce a new package that would more close to what DPP's mind to a kind of force that they want to have. Right now the problem is that whether the White House or the so-called the mid and upper level officials in the state and in the Pentagon are not in place. So there is no initiative or momentum right now. So as slow appointments may also delay the conversation between Taiwan and the United States on new arms sales. Another facet about Tsai Ing-wen's approach to military affairs is that she really wants to build a national defense industry. And as I see it, it's for a couple of reasons, it reduced Taiwan dependence on foreign sales. And also, as I see it, her thinking is that if you have a national defense industry, it will have technological spin-off that can go into the civilian economy. How is she doing on that? What's her take? What kind of grade do you give her for building the national defense industry? Determination and will are very strong on the part of presidential office and the National Security Council. They believe that, as you said, that a renewed emphasis of the defense industry will bring more job opportunities and technical beneficials to Taiwan's economy. But everybody knows that this will be a long-term deal. It's not something that you can see that happening or the benefit can be seen in two years. So that's one part. The other part is that whether Taiwan is in need of immediate upgrade of some obsolete systems to replace them, if we are talking about a long-term strategy or industrial strategy, everybody clap hands and say, fine, we'll do it. And maybe, eventually, the United States will face difficulty to sell systems to Taiwan. So we need to build up some kind of our capacity. But on the other hand, the military is saying that we are flying really obsolete airplanes. For instance, our trainer, our F5s, they're more than 40 years old. And so a quicker supply would be buying from a board. But this would conflict to the president's industrial plane. As much as I admire her zest in wanting to create a national defense industry, I have the concern that you just touched on it. It was trainers. Now, Italy makes some really good trainers, which are used by the Israelis and several other countries. And you know, it's really hard to find countries that will sell any kind of weapon system to Taiwan. So why not go through with this? Because like you say, it's going to take a while to develop this national defense industry. You need the planes now. Go for them. And there's another part of this, too, that sticks in my mind. And I remember you and I talking about it when I visited you one day in Taiwan, Taiwan and Raytheon in Italy are developing this prototype Taiwan Minesweeper in an Italian port. And so the Italians are willing to, you know, sort of like, well, OK, whatever China says or what, we're going to go ahead and do this. And not many countries do that. And you know, I don't think you want to hurt that connection. Yes, indeed. But with limited resources and the current government's vision on how to use the limited resources, I think they consider they're building up or getting a stronger base for the future defense industry as one of their highlights of their presidency. So they need to push over for it. Yeah, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens. I think this is a good place here to go to break. You're watching Asian Review on your host, Bill Sharp. Our guest today is Dr. Alexander Huang, who's joining us from his office in Taipei, Taiwan. We're having a really interesting discussion about the Taiwan defense issues. And Alexander Huang is a noted expert in this field, so we're really lucky to have him with us here today. We'll be back in about one minute, so don't go away. I'm Kauii Lukas, host of Hawaii is my mainland every Friday at 3 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. We talk about things of interest to those of us who live here, and my past blogs can be found at kauiilukas.com. Okay. I didn't listen. I'm going to the game, and it's going to be great early arriving for a little tailgate. It's nice to be the guy that keeps his friends in line, keeps them from drinking too much so we can have a great time. A little responsibility can go a long way, because it's all about having fun on game day. I'm the guy you want to be. I'm the guy. Save it money. I'm the guy with the H2O, and I'm the guy that says, let's go. Welcome back to Asian Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. Our show today is today's Taiwan military. Our guest is Dr. Alexander Wong, who's joining us via Skype from Taipei, Taiwan. We're having a really good discussion about very contemporary issues in the Taiwan military. Well, okay. I think the next thing we probably should talk about, and some people will point it out to us that we didn't talk about it, unless we do talk about it. And that's the Taiwan Submarine Construction Plan. What's your view on that? I know that you're a former naval officer, so you must have a special interest in this. Of course. I can testify that in my conversation, since I was in the 20s, now I'm almost 58. The Republic of China Navy had never gave up the request, the idea to acquire the underwater fighting capability, because it is strategic, it is stealth, and it is necessary for our aerial and service ASW capability training. So for us, the submarine is more for ASW training purposes and limited defense for coastal waters. It's not something fancy that we are going to use that to attack. Number two, the underwater technologies that we do not have the blueprint. No country wanted to sell us the blueprint or the complete submarine. President George W. Bush showed it's goodwill and committed that the United States will work hard to see if Taiwan can get eight diesel-powered submarines back in 2001. But unfortunately, Taiwan did not have the budget to go through, and there was a conflicting view within Taiwan politicians. So the Navy had become the victim for this political consideration. Of course, submarine is a sharp technology. Taiwan needs to buy, to purchase, to learn. It takes time. And so right now we are still in the stage of defining what kind of model, capacity, and initial stage of study. The current administration of DPP wanted to conclude the study phase within several years and started the construction. But everybody knows that we need money, lots of money, to invest it in it. And we need to train our people. We need to invite and pay for foreign nationals with that knowledge and know-how to come to Taiwan to help us. It's going to be very hard. Do you think there's any possibility that Japanese might sell submarines to Taiwan or decommission Japanese submarines? It is imaginable, but it needs lots of skill or probably one or two third parties to get involved, to reduce the shockwave reaction from China. That's a really good way to put it. That's a really good way to put it. Other parties to reduce the shockwave. These days there seems to be more visible interaction between the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense and the U.S. Department of Defense. You're shaking your head in the affirmative. So I guess you agree with that. Oh yeah, I think former chairman of AIT had in public stated that the United States Ministry of Personnel visited Taiwan in averages about 2000 men a year. So it's a very close tie from the exchange of academy cadets to the senior dialogue. I think we have a lot of exchanges and we are very hopeful that since the passage of the fiscal year 2017 Defense Authorization Act of the United States there will be new possibilities for flag officers visit to involve Taiwan military and the United States hosted military exercises and there are more exchanges and the collaborations can be imaginable. Yeah, that sounds good to me. That sounds real good to me. Well you know traditionally Taiwan military has been considered to be deep blue and but I wonder with younger folks coming into the military folks that have been were born and raised in Taiwan and as I understand it more and more of these folks are getting promoted to flag level rank is the military becoming less blue and maybe not green but kind of turquoise a little blue and a little green is there is there really a transformation going on? In general sense a short answer is yes there is a generation change so does to the government agencies and universities it's across the board. I think the current Taiwan Armed Forces if we are talking about in the past 20 years they were taught educated to be apolitical the growing down or the the blue party had been you know you know took away their military units or organizations more than 20 years ago. So we are looking at a new Taiwan military forces who will defend the island fight for the constitution protect the people but they try now to be political they learn their lessons and they model from the United States they pay their allegiance to the country. Okay so in other words in the old days you had if you were a Taiwan military officer and I suppose perhaps an NCO as well you were sort of forced heavily encouraged to join the KMT that's gone that's out that no longer you know you can be forced to join the KMT or passively forced because you know if we are talking about 30 40 years ago every minute young military officer knew that if they do not have a party membership they got a promotion problem but now today this is you know you don't talk about party membership even you have it you have to hide it because people hate to talk about political parties in the rank and files this is a new apolitical miniature. That's really good well now we know that you you know what the chairman of the council on strategic and more gaming studies so tell us a little bit about your organization. Well you know I started to learn war gaming when I was a grad student in the United States in the classrooms and later on play roles together with my American colleagues in the army you know war college over carol albergs and and other government agencies so I learned a lot when I returned to Taiwan when I moved back I I considered that Taiwan is at war gaming for Taiwan was only military and so I introduced the political military war games the seminar games the national security level war games to this country and I I could say that I am a pioneer and in the past you know 10 plus years I have been able to invite senior government officials to join my game and we have been pretty successful so far. Well how does this work now when you when you do these exercises when you have these senior government officials and I suppose senior military officials as well do you do like role plays is this some kind of computer simulation how how are you how is the what would be a typical problem you would have them work on and how would they go about working on it. Usually we we put people in different rooms you know in the style or format of seminar game we give our scenarios at the national security level pretty senior level and take on issues such as you know the impact of a possible war in the Korean Peninsula or a unintended incident take place near the typing islands in the South China Sea and how Taiwan's you know national security apparatus needs to react to those situations of course I try not to touch the military assault or or operational war games because that's their job I mean the the uniform services job I only do the national security you know the foreign policy men on policy decisions making process the political side of it the political yes okay that's really interesting well you know there's so many mainland missiles appointed at Taiwan and everybody's statistics vary but somewhere is between 1200 and 1800 and depends on what newspaper or magazine you read right but anyway there are a lot of missiles pointed at Taiwan does Taiwan need a tha ad system such as has been just put in place in the South Korea um yeah there are a conflicting argument for me I don't think Taiwan needs uh a sad system per se uh if uh and I also know that the pack three uh patriot system is only point defense if we want to have an area uh defense uh of missile defense system we need to think of that or a a ship based system um to me probably as a navy officer probably um as a you know strategic calculation I would rather put if we're gonna have a area defense system I would rather put it on warships okay well it's it's it's unfair to stop you at this point but I've just been notified that our time is running out and and that's the you know the clock is never our friend and uh I really want to thank you for joining us today it's been a great interview and I want to thank you and our audience for joining us today our next broadcast will be on June the 5th and at that time we'll be joined by retired navy captain Kimo Fanel who is uh was the chief naval intelligence officer at Pacific Fleet we'll see you then