TAIPEI — As the Senate contemplates sending large sums of security assistance to Taiwan, independent defense analysts here are urging U.S. lawmakers to maximize their leverage at a sensitive time in cross-strait relations. They want Congress to convince Taiwanese officials to enact a series of defense overhauls — from increased civilian oversight of the Defense Ministry to changing how Taipei recruits and trains its military conscripts and volunteers.
“If the issue is institutional, then the only fix is to fix the institution. Weapons, tools, hardware, buying the right powerful platform — this is totally besides the question,” said Paul Huang, a defense analyst and research fellow at the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, a nonpartisan research organization. “You’re looking at a military that is just totally stuck in the past, that is not adapting to new realities, the civil-military relations are completely outdated. . . . It’s not the way a military in a democracy should be run.”
Huang warned that if Congress focuses its security assistance efforts to Taiwan mostly on speeding up and expanding weapons shipments, that could be wasted American taxpayer money unless the Taiwanese Defense Ministry changes the way it operates.
