末世重生 主攻:谁能帮我找一找关于落叶归根的文章,要是关于台湾的哦

The fallen leaves return to their roots

"Fallen leaves return to the root"means that people return to their hometowns eventually just as leaves fall around the tree root. TAIPEI, Taiwan _ The military balance of power across the Taiwan Strait is tipping in China's favor, unsettling Pentagon war planners and raising U.S. concerns about Taiwan's ability to thwart a sudden Chinese attack.

China now has at least 496 short-range ballistic missiles aimed at the island's air bases, military installations and government sites. Each missile is thought to be accurate to about 30 yards.

"Their missiles are increasing in number by the month and by the day," said Taiwanese Deputy Defense Minister Lin Chong-pin.

Over the past year, the Pentagon has helped Taiwan harden bunkers, reinforce air bases, practice speedy runway repair and begin to install software so that fighter aircraft can communicate with ground forces and ships. But China's military modernization has proceeded so quickly that experts say it soon may be able to overwhelm the island before American naval forces could arrive.

The issue is timely. Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has called for a referendum March 20 on defense issues, which China furiously condemns as part of a campaign of "creeping independence." The Chinese government has demanded that the referendum be canceled.

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and says it has the right to forcibly retake the island, which has been governed separately since 1949, the end of the Chinese civil war. China seeks peaceful reunification, but has said it can't wait forever.

The United States could be drawn into a conflict between China and Taiwan, an island about the size of Massachusetts. The United States pledged in 1979 to provide Taiwan with defensive arms.

Even as American officials praise Taiwan for its democracy and booming free-market practices, they quietly grumble that its leaders are shirking some of the burden of defending the island, trusting that a U.S. security guarantee is sufficient to deter an attack by China. Taiwan's military spending has fallen over the past decade from 4.2 percent to 2.6 percent of its gross domestic product, or economic output.

Barely 83 miles of ocean separate Taiwan from the mainland at its closest point, so the island's 23 million people have grown accustomed to living with China's threats.

"We are five to seven minutes away from their bomber attack, and five to 10 minutes away from their missile attack," said Alexander Huang, the vice chairman of the governmental Mainland Affairs Council.

Some U.S. experts say Taiwan hasn't yet crossed a threshold of weakness that might embolden the mainland.

"At present, Taiwan can still take care of itself in most scenarios," said John J. Tkacik Jr., a China specialist with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research center in Washington.

Even so, Pentagon officials have signaled dismay at what they consider the island's lagging preparations. They've quietly told Taipei that by 2006 the Chinese military will be able to seize Taiwan and deter American forces from intervening. More limited military action, such as briefly seizing part of the island, could come sooner.

China's armed forces are modernizing rapidly. They deploy about 75 additional short-range ballistic missiles per year aimed at Taiwan, and are rapidly expanding an inventory of amphibious troop carriers and the world's most sophisticated amphibious light tank, all aimed at a possible attack on the island. They also are developing cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, and launching a network of surveillance satellites.

"With this rapid a pace of buildup and with this buildup directed so forcefully and frontally against Taiwan, it's clearly an attempt to change the dynamic," Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless told a panel in Washington this month.

Alarmed by China's advances, the Pentagon a year or so ago gave Taiwan's leaders a menu of "critical needs" to help it survive a missile barrage and ride out any attempt to "decapitate" the island's political leadership in a lightning strike before U.S. naval forces could arrive from Japan, a four-day sail away.

It suggested that Taiwan beef up its anti-submarine capability to prevent a Chinese blockade of the island and create a command structure to survive a saturation missile attack.

With the missile buildup, China has identified a chink in Taiwan's defensive capabilities. The island has only limited antimissile batteries around Taipei, the capital.

"We have no capability to deter Chinese missile strikes. Those missiles can conduct pre-emptive surgical strikes over Taiwan at any time," said Andrew Yang, a military expert from the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a Taipei research center.

China is thought to be capable of detonating an electromagnetic pulse bomb over Taiwan that could disable the island's electronic systems, and perhaps cut its power.

Over the past year, Taiwan signed a long-term deal with Lockheed Martin, potentially worth $2.1 billion, to build a "survivable" communications system to allow fighter aircraft, ships and land forces to coordinate during war, and allow a mobile central command to weather an attack.

Taiwan now has a hangar inside a mountainside capable of protecting up to 100 F-16 and Mirage fighter jets, and it has upgraded early-warning radar systems.