Over the past 60 years, China and Taiwan have hurled threats across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait. But China’s People’s Liberation Army Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde found a new way to get Taiwan’s goat: downplay China’s threat to Taiwan.

At the first high-level military dialogue between the U.S. and China since military contact was derailed following the sale of $6 billion worth of weapons to Taiwan in January 2010, Gen. Chen denied that China had any missiles across from Taiwan, saying, “I can tell you here, responsibly, that we only have garrison deployment across from Taiwan and we do not have operational deployment, much less missiles stationed there.”

Experts and Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense say China has more than 1,000 missiles targeted at Taiwan. While many of the missiles may not be “across from Taiwan,” they’re awfully close, as Mark Stokes, executive director of think tank Project 2049 Institute thoroughly chronicles in a recent blog post.

Taiwan’s top brass responded in kind, with Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu calling Gen. Chen’s statement “far from the truth.” He added, “In actuality China has been continuously increasing the number of missiles it has deployed along the coast.”

And lest anyone interpret Gen. Chen’s comments as an indication of an actual softening of China’s stance on Taiwan, the military leader also stressed that China’s position on the island hasn’t changed, and that further arms sales to Taiwan could impact U.S.-China relations.

In Taiwan’s legislature on Thursday, Lin Yu-fang, a legislator and senior member of Taiwan’s national defense committee, said Gen. Chen was “lying through his teeth.” But in an interview Friday with China Real Time, he said despite Gen. Chen’s tougher statements about the impact Taiwan arms sales have on Sino-U.S. relations, it might be possible for China and the U.S. to broker an agreement to ensure they can maintain military relations as the U.S. continues to sell weapons to Taiwan.

“Gen. Chen’s trip to the U.S. has attracted much domestic Chinese attention, so he has to say something very tough on the Taiwan issue, to appease the many nationalists there,” he said.

He added that it would be also be a significant loss of face for a Chinese representative not to bring up the matter: “The PRC (People’s Republic of China) has kept saying Taiwan is a part of China, and the U.S. has ignored the PRC and sold weapons systems…it’s kind of a humiliation to the PRC, they have to at least do something to protest.”

But Mr. Lin said it was possible the two sides might come to a “tacit understanding” to maintain a military relationship while the U.S. sells some weapons to Taiwan. He added that could mean the U.S. would delay the sale of some weapons systems like diesel submarines or new F-16 C/Ds, both of which Taiwan covets. Still, he balked at Mr. Chen’s statement that some members of U.S. congress would consider reviewing the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires the U.S. to sell defensive weapons to Taiwan.

“There could be compromise in terms of the items sold, but if it’s a compromise in terms of no more sales to Taiwan, that’s impossible….that would change the balance of power in East Asia and is not in America’s interest,” he said.

–Paul Mozur

In recent years, China has re-invigorated its support for leading state-owned enterprises in sectors it considers important to “economic security,” explicitly looking to foster globally competitive national champions.

The government vowed to continue reforming the economy and emphasized the need to increase domestic consumption in order to make China less dependent on foreign exports for GDP growth in the future.

China is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with an average growth rate of 10% for the past 30 years.

Some economists believe that Chinese economic growth has been in fact understated during much of the 1990s and early 2000s, failing to fully factor in the growth driven by the private sector and that the extent at which China is dependent on exports is exaggerated.

The disparities between the two sectors have combined to form an economic-cultural-social gap between the rural and urban areas, which is a major division in Chinese society.

China has acquired some highly sophisticated production facilities through trade and also has built a number of advanced engineering plants capable of manufacturing an increasing range of sophisticated equipment, including nuclear weapons and satellites, but most of its industrial output still comes from relatively ill-equipped factories.

The market-oriented reforms China has implemented over the past two decades have unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship, whilst retaining state domination of the economy.

Both forums will start on Tuesday.

In this period the average annual growth rate stood at more than 50 percent.

China is aiming to be the world’s largest new energy vehicle market by 2020 with 5 million cars.

China’s challenge in the early 21st century will be to balance its highly centralized political system with an increasingly decentralized economic system.

Even with these improvements, agriculture accounts for only 20% of the nation’s gross national product.

China is the world’s largest producer of rice and wheat and a major producer of sweet potatoes, sorghum, millet, barley, peanuts, corn, soybeans, and potatoes.

Due to improved technology, the fishing industry has grown considerably since the late 1970s.

There are also extensive iron-ore deposits; the largest mines are at Anshan and Benxi, in Liaoning province.

China is among the world’s four top producers of antimony, magnesium, tin, tungsten, and zinc, and ranks second (after the United States) in the production of salt, sixth in gold, and eighth in lead ore.

The largest completed project, Gezhouba Dam, on the Chang (Yangtze) River, opened in 1981; the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest engineering project, on the lower Chang, is scheduled for completion in 2009.
Beginning in the late 1970s, changes in economic policy, including decentralization of control and the creation of special economic zones to attract foreign investment, led to considerable industrial growth, especially in light industries that produce consumer goods.

Other leading ports are rail termini, such as Lüshun (formerly Port Arthur, the port of Dalian), on the South Manchuria RR; and Qingdao, on the line from Jinan.

More here:
‘Lying Through His Teeth’: Taiwan Scoffs at China ‘No Missile’ Claim