China: October 25, 2000

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Taiwan's next series of defense upgrades are to focus on three areas:

@ Anti-Missile Defense. Without Aegis destroyers (which President Clinton refused to sell) and with it unlikely for the US to include Taiwan in its regional missile defense system, the best hope is the new Patriot missile batteries and new Raytheon early warning radars (due to be installed in 2005).

@ An expanded strike capability would allow Taiwan to hit key targets in China that could disrupt any invasion, and would allow Taiwan to retaliate for any Chinese missile attack.

@ Taiwan wants to integrate its command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems.-Stephen V Cole