Sept. 02 (China Military News cited from AFP) -- China is ramping-up its military presence facing taiwan despite the easing of hostilities across the Strait, a defence ministry report cited by local media warned Wednesday.

"Although the cross-Strait ties have improved significantly in recent years, the Chinese communists' military have not slowed at all their pace of build-up aimed at taiwan," the United Daily News said, citing the ministry report.

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In a report to the US Congress last month, the Pentagon also warned that China's military build-up against the island has "continued unabated" despite improving political relations across the taiwan Strait.

China's military spending for 2010 rose 7.5 percent on last year, in spite of the global economic downturn, said the taiwan report which was sent to parliament last week.

Looking ahead, the defence report said Beijing may offer concessions to Taipei on minor issues but will not budge on the decades-old dispute over the island's sovereignty.

Aug. 19 (China Military News cited from focustaiwan.tw) -- taiwan has been closely monitoring China's military buildup while continuously seeking to upgrade it's defense capability, despite improved cross-strait relations, President Ma Ying-jeou told a Japanese daily Wednesday.

taiwan's national defense system has remained vigilant in the face of China's incessant military expansion and upgrading, Ma said during an interview with the Japanese business daily Sankei Shimbun.

"taiwan will maintain good military ties with the United States, including continuing to purchase weapons from the U.S., and taiwan will continue to hone its defensive skills by conducting military exercises, " Ma said in the interview that was posted on the paper's website.

He stressed the importance of the Japan-U.S. security treaty signed in 1960, saying that it has since formed the bedrock of peace and stability in East Asia.

On a spate of accidents in which Taiwanese fishing boats were rammed or chased by Japanese patrol boats in waters near the diplomatically disputed Diaoyutai Islands, known in Japanese as the Senkaku Islands, Ma said Japan and taiwan have had different stances on the thorny issue.

The time is not yet ripe for taiwan and Japan to resolve this dispute, Ma said, adding that taiwan will not ally with China against Japan in the dispute.

"This is an issue that taiwan and Japan must tackle between themselves," Ma said.

"I hope both countries will work first to reach a consensus on how to address the matter regarding fishermen's rights," he added.

Ma also talked about taiwan's signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China, which was passed into law by taiwan's legislature Aug. 17 and is slated to take effect later this year.

Under the law, China will remove the tariffs on 539 categories of imports from taiwan, while taiwan will give tariff concessions to 267 items from China.

Ma said mainland China has been the major barrier to taiwan's bid to sign free trade agreements (FTAs) with other countries.

"The ECFA has obviously been a boost to taiwan's FTA efforts, epitomized by new developments between taiwan and Singapore, which could start talks on the signing of a trade cooperation pact soon, " the president told the daily.