 Well, good morning, everyone. I'm Stephen Flanagan, the Henry Kissinger Chair in National Security and Diplomacy here at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and it's a pleasure to welcome a number of good friends and former colleagues and those many good quality people interested in Taiwan and security relations in East Asia. We're also delighted to have as our speaker today a good friend of CSIS and many of us in the room, Mr. Andrew Nenzu Yang, who is, of course, the Vice Minister for Policy at the Ministry of Defense in Taiwan, a position that he has held since just celebrating his second anniversary, a little over his second anniversary in that job since September of 2009. Vice Minister Yang, as many of you know, has been an influential scholar and advisor to policy makers on defense strategy, on cross-strait and regional security issues. He's perhaps best known in this audience for his work as Secretary General of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Study CAPS for nearly two decades. He's, of course, also held a number of faculty appointments at the Sun Yat-sen University, where he also worked as a research associate earlier in his career. He has, of course, been an influential advisor to policy makers in the Ministry of National Defense, the Mainland Affairs Council, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over these many years, and as I said, a good friend to many people in this room. His education earlier was at Fujian University in sociology, quite diverse, then going into a master's degree in industrial sociology, and then a master's degree also in economics at the London School of Economics, and he was also a research associate in political economy at Wilson College at Oxford University. Vice Minister Yang is going to talk about the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region and on elements of Taiwan's defense strategy and defense transformation efforts. This address is on the record. He will speak for about 30 minutes, and then we will turn the floor over to discussion, which will be moderated by my colleague, Bonnie Glazer, a senior fellow with the Freeman Chair here at CSIS. So without further ado, let me welcome to the floor Admiral, I mean, Vice Minister. I'm sorry, we also have an Admiral and the Vice Minister, Andrew Yang. Thank you, Stephen, for your such a gracious introduction. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and my good friends over here. This is my fifth visit to CSIS, out of my 11th visit to Washington, D.C. for the last two years. When I joined the MND as Vice Defense Minister, it's a very, very precious experience for me, and I also personally witnessed very strong ties between the United States and Republic of China on Taiwan. My visits also symbolize we have very robust, very productive, and very strong relations for the last couple of years. I want to address some of the issues which I personally involved and give you some of the perspectives about what should be done in terms of continued to consolidate and to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Taiwan. I think in terms of the strong and robust relations that we have experienced for the last couple of years, which symbolize this close and strong relations was based on a shared, the same values of upholding democracy and freedom, not only in Taiwan, but also in terms of U.S. conduct of its foreign policies. Secondly, it is also a symbol of U.S. strong commitment to Taiwanese security codified by the Taiwan Relations Act and continuously supporting Taiwan to strengthen its self-defense. It is also symbolizing we have received strong executive branch and by the partisan congressional support over Taiwanese defense needs in the past couple of years. We also continuously conduct very productive, robust interactions at the policy level, at the working level, and at the service level throughout the years. In all those kind of very close and strong ties, we have achieved, I think, these four several things. Number one, enhancing mutual trust between MND and Panagong in terms of looking at and identifying some of the needed areas for strengthening our defense in the past. It also identify the areas of corporations and continuous corporations down the road as well. It is also a symbol of abundant mutual trust between both sides. It is also a symbol of strong support for our course of national policies in terms of conducting peaceful cross-strait interactions, assisting Taiwanese participation in many international activities. It also helping Taiwan to conduct its necessary defense transformations so that we can continue to strengthen our self-defense. So it is not only about ourselves in terms of U.S. Taiwan needs to defense ties. It is very much a comprehensive mutual relations covering not only national security issues, but also issues involving regional peace and stability as well. If we look at the situation in the Western Pacific Ocean areas, we're still facing a number of challenges down the road, not only in terms of the traditional security challenges in those disputes in the Korean Peninsula, in terms of Chinese continuous military modernization and its power projection. But also we also witness there is dynamic and potentially complex situation in the South China Sea and also in the East China Sea as well. So there are elements of uncertainties in terms of security challenges in the future. However, I think that the weak also continuously conduct robust interactions and exchanges to share our perceptions and assessments over the regional security issues and to address areas of mutual interest and continuous cooperation in order to continue to preserve peace and stability in those regions. In addition to that, we also enter into the discussions how to address the challenges emerging in terms of unconventional security issues. Such as climate change and humanitarian and disaster relief, which are badly needed for not only countries in the region, but also for Taiwan as well. We also have to address the issue of preventing weapons of mass destruction and proliferation. We certainly have putting a lot of effort to address those mutual cooperation in this WMD proliferation issue here. We also continue to share information in terms of preventing piracy at sea. This is also another area for our concern as well. In terms of addressing unconventional security challenges, in the past we already show some benefits and effects in terms of addressing the humanitarian and disaster relief operations, such as our efforts to conduct relief operations and disaster relief operations to assist Haitian earthquakes after mass rescue operations. This is the example of close cooperation between the United States and our Air Force in terms of assisting this long-range voyage to provide necessary help to Haitian earthquakes, disaster relief operations. We also witness there is cooperation in terms of addressing the needs and helps as a result of a type of monocard taking place in Taiwan and US Marine and Navy providing necessary humanitarian assistance to assist our aftermath damage control in Taiwan as well. These are the two examples to show that there are areas for our cooperation in the future so that we can work together to prevent and address needs to prevent the unconventional security challenges as well. In the meantime, we also have very proactive interactions in terms of addressing our future defense transformation needs. The emphasis is how to assist Taiwan to acquire asymmetrical capabilities and advanced technologies so that we can continue to strengthen our self-defense to support our peaceful approach to mainland China. I think the congressional hearings conducted in September, late September and both Peter Lavoie, Assistant Secretary for Defense and also Dr. Kirk Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State, attended the hearing and gave a very, very comprehensive and detailed remarks to address why Taiwan is important and why Taiwan is still in need of US defense support. The message are on the wall, abundantly clear that the United States' support for Taiwan is to enhance our self-confidence to conduct necessary policies to strengthen the peace and stability environment in this area. I think it shows that the United States and Taiwan share the same values, share the same concerns, and share the same interests, not only to preserve peace and stability, but also to help countries in the neighborhood to conduct their identical imperial peace and freedom and democracy in order to upgrade their nation in a more stable road down the road. So in that case, I think US-Taiwan security cooperation is vitally important, a very strong pillar to support the entire Asian Pacific region's future peace and stability and also continue to conduct economic modernization so that we can also share the accomplishments as a result of this effort. Recently, Secretary Clinton repeated the address that US will continue to commit its support for Asia and also continue to show US strength to support Asian development as well. I think this message is well received at home. We will continue to go close ties with the United States and work closely with US government and also Pentagon in terms of not only to continue to strengthen our self-defense, but also to share common objectives and views to address the security needs in this region. As for Taiwan, there are some areas for our concerns in our future continuous efforts to strengthen our self-defense. The number one concern is we want to get as much resources and support for our efforts at home. In terms of defense modernization and transformation, it is necessary to provide sufficient resources and support for this effort. This will be the task not only for MND to convince the legislators and cabinet to give us necessary support. We also want to alert the public that security should be the priority for our concern in the course of developing peace and stability in the region. Secondly, we have to pay attention to the demographic changes and the shortage of manpower in our society as well because that also related to the implementation of our volunteer system in the future. In terms of upgrading the quality of our personnel and manpower and in terms of getting the right people to cope with the necessary defense transformation in Taiwan, it's also very vital for our policy and policy implementation in the future. Last but nonetheless, we have to pay great attention and all the complex issues in terms of how to achieve our asymmetrical capability in the future. This will be the area for continuous discussions between my department and Pentagon in the future. I think we have to address the needs, how to enhance the quality of our defense, not only the quantity issue. We appreciate that the United States Defense Department has produced its air defense review report and submitted to the Congress in September. In fact, this report is very much based on a continuous discussion between Pentagon and MND in the last couple of years. We have actually examined the areas for our air defense requirements in the future and we will continue to discuss some of the priorities so that the air defense issue can be met in our discussion and acquisition in the future. What I want to say in the last few couple of minutes is that my own personal experience has shown we maintain strong ties between the ROC, MND and Pentagon in the last couple of years. This is the result not only of mutual trust but also surprise free. We continue to conduct this robust and trustworthy interactions both at a policy level and at a working level and continue to address issues so that we will fulfill our objectives and with the U.S. assistance and commitments for our security and defense. Thank you. Thank you very much Vice Minister Young. Always a pleasure to have you back here at CSIS. We will now take questions from the floor and please wait for the microphone and identify yourself before asking your question. Thank you. I'm Tom Rekford with the World Affairs Council. Vice Minister, you referred slightly to issues in the South China Sea. We've heard a lot lately about claims from Beijing for the the Spratly Islands. We know that Taiwan has similar claims but hasn't been talking so much about them. What is Taiwan's position on the South China Sea? Perhaps I could add to that question a little bit. There has been some discussion in the press about the possibility of Taiwan reinforcing its weapons on a typing island which it occupies. It belongs to the to the claim by the Republic of China as well as claimed by some other countries and last year or earlier this year I think there were reports about the possibility of replacing the Coast Guard forces that is deployed there with Marines and I know there have been some denials issued from your defense ministry but perhaps you can clarify that as well. Thank you. Thank you for the question and thanks for Bonnie's for the elaboration of the situation. First of all our policy in terms of the area of South China Sea is very much holding the position that we protecting our sovereignty in this area and we continue to address issues of cooperation and sitting aside the disputes and emphasizing areas of mutual interest and seeking cooperation to resolve the problems and the sparkly disputes and we also urging the regional multilateral mechanisms inviting Taiwan to be part of a process so that we can achieve peaceful code of conduct to manage the sea lanes of communication in this area so our policy remain intact and still very much seeking cooperation and setting aside the disputes. With regard to the troop stations in the Sprati Islands we haven't changed opposition since the beginning of this administration. That is we continue to support the current Coast Guard stations at the Sprati Islands so that they will regulate the area to conduct judicial operations and defending the territory as well. We have no plan to replace Coast Guards by the armed forces. We have no plan to reinforce the island security and defense by introduction of further high-tech weapon systems or troops stationed on the island. We still maintain the policy we will support the Coast Guards and improving their abilities so that they can conduct their defense on the island and also regulating the sea areas surrounding the island. Richard Bush. You mentioned the creation of a volunteer force and you mentioned a couple of external challenges manpower and budget. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the challenges that you've identified internally when you make a transition from a conscript force to a volunteer force and what are the lessons you're learning. Thank you. Thank you Richard for the question. With regard to the internal challenges that we are facing in terms of replacing or not replacing reinforcing the volunteer forces instead of emphasizing the construction that we have in the current day. There are three areas internal challenges. Number one legislative support for a necessary amendment of the military laws and regulations, organization laws and regulations to assist the implementation of this transformation. Not only the increasing the volunteers for our armed forces but also to address the need for further defense restructuring organizational changes as well. So these two or three pieces of legislation are vitally important for the success of assisting the volunteer systems to be enacted in the near future. That's number one. Number two we need to convince the cabinet and also the OY to give us to provide us with sufficient resources, adequate increase in our budget to pay for the necessary cost for the introduction of the volunteer system in the future. Number three is the proper support for the volunteer system. So that requires a lot of education not only from the M&D's point of view but also in terms of the overall support from the grassroots. We need to enhance the educational systems to educate our youngsters what are the areas of necessities and importance so that the volunteer systems can actually helping us to conduct necessary transformation in the future. So those are the three major internal challenges that I can identify so far. John-San with CTI TV High Minister Yan. Good to see you again here in DC. During your visit this time have you heard any clarification from the Pentagon about Secretary Panetta's remarks that the US gave Beijing heads up before the arms sales announcement and have you heard any new movement on Taiwan's continuing request for the F-16 CDs and also you spoke of the asymmetric capabilities in what particular or specific areas would you like the United States to help Taiwan develop? Thank you very much. Thank you John. As far as I know we haven't get a public announcements or statements regarding the issue you mentioned the heads up issues that Secretary Panetta made the remarks during his visit to Asia but we actually receive private explanations of what's the situation in the course of conducting those remarks and fully understand the remarks made in his talk was not related to anything that US commitment to Taiwanese defense so it's abundantly clear there's no direct relations between those remarks and US commitment for our defense. That's number one. Number two with regard to the F-16 CD issue mentioned I think Assistant Secretary of State and Assistant Secretary of Defense they made those remarks at the congressional hearings already emphasizing this will be the issue under consideration by the US government in the future as well. We will continue to discuss the issue with US side to see what should be done in terms of handling the issue so we have no further reports so far regarding the F-16 you mentioned. Asymmetric capability this is a priority and vitally important for our continuous defense modernization and transformation. We take this issue very seriously and we continue to discuss with the US side with Pentagon what should be done and what are the priorities in terms of enhancing our asymmetrical capabilities. We keep an open mind and there are many areas and opportunities to address the issue in the future. Thank you Alan Romberg Stimson Center. I had it. Good to see you. Taking advantage of John's precedent of asking two questions I'm gonna do that. Okay one is to follow up on Tom Rekford's question about the South China Sea. The PRC is very unclear shall we say about the significance of the Nine-Dash line but since it's a line that was drawn when the ROC was sitting on the mainland I wonder if you could give us some help in understanding Taipei's understanding of what it means. Does it mean sovereignty over all the waters, over the land features? What about the possibility of territorial waters or EEZ? Do you have something you can help us understand Taipei's perspective since the claim is for the same set of islands reefs and so on as Beijing claims and yet their claim about the line itself is not very clear. The second is while I would welcome having you address political issues my sense is you'll want to stay away from them like the plague but I but the issue of a peace accord is on the table since President Ma raised it on October 17th. My question is from an MND perspective although obviously this is an issue for the future and not something that anybody has sort of figured out what should be and what shouldn't be and so on and so forth but have you thought about conceptually what you would be concerned to be included in any peace accord and what you would be concerned should be excluded again from an MND perspective? The first question is much easier than the second one. Comparities for speaking. Yes. Well in fact you mentioned PRC is unclear about its nine-dash claim. In reality we call it a historical waters in our perspective. So PRC just succeeded they took over our claims as their claims so they don't have a position for it because so long as it's a historical water as far as the ROC is concerned and for Beijing I mean PRC government they consider they are the only legitimate government representing entire China so they spontaneously you know without asking our consent or whatever take over the claim by themselves that's my understanding so we call it our historical water we don't have a you know a clear definition of body-in-body international code of conduct but it's as a result of post World War II events you know accumulated you know afterwards that we have explored the area and we considered this is our historical water so PRC simply follow or to take over this claim by themselves so if they are not clear that's their business it's not our business so we still consider that so long as this historical issue it can not be resolved and we set aside those disputes and the seeking corporations and and and peaceful resolutions for this area so we are not enforcing as far as our policy is concerned we are not enforcing this historical claims we only address this is the historical issue but we we have one typing island which is under our control in our sovereignty in a sprawdy area so we certainly have to do something about it this is our position right now I've mentioned the second question will be very difficult it's hypothetical area you never ask hypothetical question in the past but but I will not speak for the M&D's position it's my own personal position here I think one thing should be included if should there be a piece of court in the future there's no time time table for it I think Beijing has must make it make it abundantly clear that they were not referred the use of force against Taiwan abandoning the use of force not only against Taiwan abandoning use of force in their foreign policies for example or at least abandoning the use of force against Taiwan I think that's that's the the must without those terms how can you secure there's a piece based on this peace accord and they have to honor it renouncing the use force is vital for Beijing's approach short of that my personal opinion is that you cannot guarantee there's a piece even you sign agreement with with Beijing don't quote it as about government policy it's my own personal opinion well maybe I can build on that and ask you your personal opinion on a topic that we have talked about a great deal which is a cross-strait confidence building measures in the military sphere and what the prerequisite for CBMS would be and I know that your ministry has done a great deal of research on military confidence building measures and even in the absence of it a formal agreement there are some search and rescue type activities that are underway not between militaries but between the local law enforcement agencies my view is as you well know that there is there could be significant benefits to both sides in pursuing military CBMS particularly increasing the predictability of the security environment and creating communication mechanisms between the two sides that could be useful potentially in a crisis to deescalate and manage a situation so my question is whether you think that there is some kind of an organic relationship between a peace accord and beginning a discussion and on military CBMS is there one that is required before the other do they go in parallel do you have any sense as to what you think in your personal view would make sense in terms of the sequencing and my assumption of course is no timetable so we're not talking about today or tomorrow or any time soon thank you Bonnie for the question I think over the time gradually within my government there is a process of consensus building right now that the situation between two sides of the time is quite unique it's difficult to adopt the experiences in other regions or other countries regarding building CBMS to be applied or to be imposed in the situation of the Thomas tree area as a result of very complex historical issues on both sides so I think the consensus building in recent months and and over the year or so is that we should achieve political trust I mean CBM is predicated on a bound and insufficient political mutual trust between two sides that's the kind of a notion and perception we have developed in our domestic at least at a policy level short of a bound and insufficient political trust is it will be difficult to to to put forward military to military competence building measures so I think that president Ma also made it a bound and clear that to you to pursue economic and easy parts in the first place and institutionalizing mutual agreement sign over the years regarding economic and investments between two sides and that symbolize this accumulated process to enhance mutual trust so it's not in reverse that we should go for a meal meal CBM in the first place and seeking peaceful co in the future so I think that probably will be the the general consensus in Taiwan right now that doesn't necessary to say that we're not seeking in a possible CBM there's one area I think that it certainly was considering that is can either side to make efforts to think about how to make a unilateral declaration over certain issues for example the issues I mentioned that if Beijing consider continuous peaceful engagement with Taiwan is beneficial to Beijing's interests and they already achieve abundant confidence in conducting peaceful engagement with Taipei can Beijing you know simply renounce the use force can they simply says that we are in a very solid peaceful position right now and we cherish this accomplishment made by both sides in the past and we want to continue to go for it so the element to use force certainly will be a strong and big obstacles to handicap the process so we'll be Beijing willing to renounce the use of force or to consider to renounce this force for example so either side can do unilateral declaration in order to enhance mutual trust so that we can achieve more peaceful elements to assist this process to resolve the difficult political issues in the future so that that's the kind of thinking I'm thinking about still my personal opinion wait for your mic please thank you Mr. Minister a draft report of the US China Economic Security and Review Commission has found that the contracting for and delivery of some of the arms that Taiwan was seeking and that have been notified to Congress has been very slow it said that four of sixty black Hawk helicopters notified in January 2010 only had been placed on order and I think only 9% of Apache helicopters notified in October 2008 had been placed on order similarly it raised the possibility that no orders or few orders had been placed for Patriot PAC three fire control units notified in January 2010 I wonder if in line with your remark that you have to discuss the needs of quality not only quantity Taiwan is in fact reducing its plan to purchase any or all of those systems and others for funding reasons or others can you can you clarify where that situation stands Jim you know better than I do that US China Economic and Security Commission is established by the Congress to look into the issues concerns US economic and security interests and making recommendations to the government US government to adjust the policies or their policy implementation to protect US interest in that regard so the question you raised should be the concern from the Congress towards the US government not directly towards our government as far as I can see in fact our relations conducted between MND and Pentagon is very much based on the Taiwan Relations Act and the issues regarding arms sales and positions very much based on the code of conduct signed by US government and Taiwan for the 40 minute sales arrangements so far as I can see we haven't actually faced the concerns or problems or delays or you know shortages you mentioned by the draft report published or you know deliberated by USCC because we have no received no direct information or responses from our counterpoint at the Pentagon so as far as I can see that things are going in accordance with the plan with a schedule even the issues raised by the USCC was very much in control by the US Defense Department and their conduct with the US defense industries well that's what I say in terms of addressing how to reinforce the asymmetrical capability in the future because there are issues need to be addressed so that we will enhance our defense capabilities based on the asymmetrical you know perception I just to drill down a bit if I may on that asymmetrical issue that you raise you cited the the report to Congress in September on air power issues air defense issues and as we've since learned the report shows concern for whether further investments in new F 16s makes good sense given the threat to Taiwan's runways in any crunch and so one of the asymmetric solutions might be something like the F 35 short take off and vertical landing aircraft I wonder whether you're interested in exploring with the United States the possibility of acquiring the Stovall version of the F 35 perhaps either in addition to the F 16 or as a substitute for the F 16 specifically because of the threat to Taiwan's runways as I mentioned earlier our position is quite open and we welcome any kind of meaningful discussions or suggestions in the process of identifying adequate and suitable and effective asymmetrical capability in the future as I mentioned as I mentioned we are quite open and waiting for interesting introductions interesting suggestions other questions Andrew I did have a question if we could come back to the earlier question about unconventional threats to Taiwan security and to global security really and and that is the whole question of cyber defense in fact we had a very interesting conference here at CSIS on Monday on that question and looking more globally and also relations with our allies and partners on cyber defense I wondered obviously that as you know the debate here in the US has been partly around the whole question of who's in charge of cyber defense should it be a military lead a military and elements of this of the intelligence and security services and and how do we integrate all of the elements including engaging the private sector in ineffective cyber defenses and I wondered if you could describe how the Ministry of Defense has in Taipei has looked at this how your plans have evolved in terms of thinking about this challenge and and what is what is the state of your coordination with other agencies of government and the private sector in Taipei and Taiwan more broadly about plans to deal with the potential disruption of of critical communications and command control systems and critical infrastructure through cyber means thank you dr. Flanagan indeed this is the vitally a vital important issue as far as MND is concerned in I would describe our current cyber defense situation in two parts one we have isolated the military information systems you know which is different from the non-military information system currently in in Taiwan so we sort of this is the very rudimentary way to prevent and any intrusion into the military information systems by simply isolating from the civilian use only in recent months actually a government has put in great emphasis on setting up a national level of cyber and information security systems on it within the executive end this is a coordination commission involving both military and non-military and other civilian departments to look into the areas should be strengthened in terms of protecting governments and civilian information systems that's one system I mean the newly created echelons under the executive end the other one is created by the National Security Council in that cyber and information security task force MND has actively participating in assisting the National Security Council to set up this task group to look into the areas needed to be strengthened both in the military sector and non-military sectors and then they will make recommendations to the president and also to the cabinet in terms of how to combine this national security cyber security task force and the executive branch commission to coordinate with each other and setting up the priorities for the improvements of the security apparatus here so it's still in the very beginning of putting extra efforts and resources to consolidate this issue we haven't decided yet who's in charge but military tech the lead to protect our military information system in the first place and then lesson learned I mean for other implications they needed our assistance to provide the our experiences to set up the cyber security for non-military use as well so maybe in time we would decide who is going to lead the this this effort or not so I cannot give you the definition right now Mike Fonte doc young good to see you Mike Fonte I'm the Washington liaison for the Democratic Progressive Party you mentioned that the good relations between Taiwan and the United States during the mod administration based on no surprises is one element of it I think a lot of people in Washington though are have been surprised by the defense budget numbers going down rather significantly over the last two years and I wonder if you could explain that a bit for us and how you indicated that you had a from MND's perspective you had to convince both the L.Y. and the executive branch to put money in the pot and seems a little strange with the KMT controlling both both of those institutions that you're having so much trouble with defense budget so I wonder if you would explain why the defense budget has gone down to 2.2 percent or something like that of GDP thanks thank you Mike yes this is indeed the fact that the year we having the chief department's 3% GDP of a national defense budget in the past couple years but if you look at the actual defense budget which obviously has been affected by the government's concern for their priority spending which is abundantly clear I don't have to explain why the resources allocation you know decision-making adopted by by the government of course we continue to make efforts to address the importance of adequate and sufficient defense resources allocation so that we can continue to conduct our defense transformation and implementing major defense policies in the future governments are aware of that they consider there's a need for more resources allocation for defense however due to the constraint of the national budget and due to the priorities we can it cannot achieve our objectives in the past two years but if you look at the next year's budget we are making effort even though there is a slightly increase for our national defense budget but it is a result of very intensive effort made by the MND and convincing not only the cabinet but also ALY to give us money because we have a major task ahead at hand for example implementing the volunteer system for that's number one and also necessary acquisition in down the road as well so next year if the budget can be approved by ALY before mid-december then we will have a more budget for 2012 that's a step forward but if you look down in the future I'm confident that we will get more resources allocation given the fact we already received approval from the US to provide F16 AB retrofit that certainly requires sufficient money to put into it and if ALY can assist MND to implement volunteer system then we will get the more budget for personal cost in the future as well so that will add up to the defense spending for the following years so I'm sure there are more resources available in terms of our future defense budgets and so consensus building and continuous effort to convince the cabinet and ALY that this is the priority for our country it's important thank you. My name is Adam Carrington I'm a contractor with my name is Adam Carrington I'm a contractor with DOD I was wondering if you could address some of the policy shifts that MND has undertaken because of the general low fallout and also has there been any type of concurrent interface with DOD because of the fallout we're experiencing from the WikiLeaks case and maybe the two are interacting with one another to address the problems from insider threats thank you. As far as I can see Adam those two cases has not direct impact over our policies we still very much putting efforts to continue our current and future efforts to meet out this defense trip of transformation objectives so so far there's no impact over our policy. Let me ask another question several months ago President Ma talked about the need to establish some kind of a code of conduct that would guide the interaction between retired military officers in Taiwan and their counterparts on the mainland as a result of some cases and the large growing number of retired military officers that are visiting the mainland so I'm wondering if you could talk about what the progress has been in that regard and what such a code of conduct might might look like and it's my understanding that it would not be legally binding so how would it actually be implemented thank you. Thank you Bonnie in fact there's no written code of conduct or any verbal code of conduct to be addressed to this issue the only thing I can see is that there are moral persuasions there were continuous moral persuasions conducted to convince those retired senior officers to pay great attention to our national interests we are not prohibiting their visits to men in China but simply aware alert those those senior retired officers in the course of conducting their visit always address the needs to protect our national interests so I call it as a moral persuasion and it is taking effect as well thank you. Other questions? So you guys are very satisfied. Well it seems like you have answered all of our questions and probably solved all of the problems that Taiwan faces as well so we would like to very much thank you for coming today and talking to us and hope that she'll come back soon. Thank you. Thank you all.