November 18, 2004 :: Xinhua :: News
Taiwan is constructing a large base at Jiupeng, located in Pingdong Province, at which it will deploy defensive Patriot missile interceptors. China is calling the base the largest in Asia, and a threat to peace.
After decades of development, Jiupeng Base gathers all the island’s secrets in high-precision observation, calculation, missile guidance, research and development, and is the island’s sole camp of test missile launch and important long-range projecting system tests. As Taiwan military boasted, the whole base is a small “space center” and its controlling center is no less than a “Space Center Houston” in a smaller scale.
The Xinhau news agency’s reference to the base as the largest in Asia must be properly understood, however. It is not as though the size of the missile base translates into a threat either to China or to other countries. China now has some 600 short range ballistic missiles off the coast of Taiwan, hundreds of cruise missiles, and a more advanced navy and air force. Taiwan’s capabilities are more defensive, but they are far from adequate. From China’s point of view, the concentration of so many important systems at one place could make it easier for them to all be destroyed together in a Chinese attack. (Article)
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