The Taiwan military recently made known its 2005 budget, in which a large batch of projects concerning international military exchanges was exposed, a rare practice by the local authority.

According to local media, the Taiwan military for the first time declared openly that it is cooperating with Israel for a project related to telecommunication monitoring; and the local authority also prepared to send staff to Latvia, Holland, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland to conduct coding work for overseas telecommunication.

The budget draft also revealed that in an "air defense" plan the Taiwan military will work with the US side to study and develop a theater missile defense system.

As reported, this is the first time that the Taiwan military conducts an "official meeting" with the US over TMD construction.

Taiwan's 2005 military budget is about 260 billilon yuan (Taiwan New Dollars, same below), 3.1 billion yuan lower than the last year and including 52.1 billion yuan for confidential items.

Most military exchanges planned for the next year are with the United States, according to the budget draft, which includes strategic military talks, personnel exchanges, joint trainings and exercises. Communication and meetings over weapon sales are the most frequent; military academic exchanges will for the first time expanded to France.

By People's Daily Online