Eager to publicize its position vis-a-vis Beijing, the government of Taiwan provided travel and accommodations for this report.

Beijing says Taiwan is a renegade province and has cited the "one China, two systems" of economic policy that allowed for Hong Kong's return to under China's flag.

Nationalists in 1949 fled mainland China for Taiwan, itself liberated only five years earlier from 50 years of Japanese colonial rule, in the face of advancing communist troops. China ceded it to Japan in 1895.

So, Taipei, at least right now, does not like the idea of coming under the communist banner. Although there is a minority in Taiwan who seem to like what it hears from Beijing.

But, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, under President Chen Shui-bian who was popularly re-elected in March 2004 and inaugurated the following May, is at the forefront of disagreement. There also is a minority calling for Taiwan to proclaim its independence.

But the DPP maintains that is unnecessary.

"We already are an independent state so there is no need to declare again that we are a sovereign state," said David W.F. Huang, vice chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council.

The DPP ousted the nationalist Kuomintang, ending 50 years of KMT rule and is rewriting laws and the constitution to include more human rights and other democratic ideals.

"Democracy has not been an easy thing to accomplish," Foreign Minister Chen Tan-sun told a small group of foreign reporters Tuesday. It was not until around 20 years ago that the people of Taiwan started to live in a completely democratic system."

That meant the people of Taiwan were able to be "masters of their own country" for the first time in history, he added.

"Nevertheless, the value of Taiwan's democracy lies not just in the self-realization of the people of Taiwan, but more so in the consolidation of the democratic development of the whole East Asian region," said Chen. "Since the lifting of martial law in Taiwan in 1987, the Philippines, South Korea, Mongolia and Indonesia have all successively chosen to take the path of democratization."

He maintains Taiwan's democratic achievements "deserve to be valued and protected by the international community," adding, Taiwan's democracy has faced serious military threats from China."

This is the cue for Taipei to reiterate its oft-repeated call for international recognition. It seldom misses a cue.

In 1971 Taiwan was voted out and Beijing assumed Taipei's seat at the United Nations, including a coveted veto-wielding chair among the permanent five members of the Security Council, the World War II victors of Britain, France Russia and the United States.

This left Taiwan out in the cold, basically officially isolated from all but a few dozen countries with which it has diplomatic relations.

It has just announced the 13th successive attempt for reinstatement in the United Nations.

Taiwan's line, heard over and over the last few days, particularly with Sunday's inauguration of the Taipei-seeded Democratic Pacific Union of a few governments and several non-governmental organizations, is that it is under threat from its neighbor across the strait, thus deserving international recognition and protection.

Taiwan officials frequently cite China's enacting an "anti-secession law" March 14 threatening non-peaceful means against what it calls renegade Taiwan, despite concerns voiced in the international community.

Over the past decade, despite the lack of any foreign threat, China's national defense budget has registered double-digit growth each year, Chen said. By his reckoning, that makes Beijing's defense budget the third largest in the world and the largest in Asia.

Taiwan maintains its defense budget has remained fairly steady and Vice President Annette Lu recently vowed the island was not going to get in an arms race with its neighbor. Her evaluation of the situation with China was it was the worst it has been recently and there were no signs of it getting better despite talks on cross-strait civilian charter flights for passengers and cargo.

"In recent years, China has deployed more than 700 missiles, which are targeted at Taiwan, along its southeast coastline, and a further 100 are being added to that number annually," said, Chen, the foreign minister. "Each year, China has conducted amphibious military drills in the Taiwan Strait over the past few years. Its intent to invade Taiwan is self-evident."

However, a short time later Tuesday, the Mainland Council's Huang, in delivering his group's meticulous assessment of China's weaponry, said it doesn't have enough amphibious assault vehicles to successfully carry out such an attack.

At the same time, Huang said, mainland aircraft "flew over the central line (running down the middle of the strait) 30 times."

The vice chairman said he thought they might have been testing Taiwan's unilateral declaration and instructions to its own pilots not to fire the first shot, "even if accidentally locked on by radar" of the mainland for guiding weaponry, in itself regarded as a hostile action.

He also points out some of Beijing's defense spending is going "to build up its blue sea navy. These are not just coast guard aircraft, submarines and missiles."

Drawing attention to the imminent joint military exercises between Russia and China in East Asia, he said their actions have also raised recently voiced concern in Japan and the United States.

However, Huang's assessment is that "China may not have enough capability to invade Taiwan but it wants the capability for a surgical strike" that could take out emergency services and lead to "the early capture of leaders" in Taiwan to force a quick capitulation.

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