Hong Kong's pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po newspaper reported Monday that China would be willing to pull out hundreds of ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan if Washington stopped selling high-tech military hardware to the island.

"(This) is intended to reduce or even cut off US arms sales to Taiwan, tipping the military balance in favor of communist China," Taiwan's defense ministry spokesman Huang Suey-sheng told reporters.

Taiwan's government spokesman Chen Chi-mai also rejected the reported proposal on the grounds that China was pursuing an arms build-up which threatened the island.

"China's military spending has risen at a double-digit rate each year...their military spending last year amounted to between 50 billion US dollars and 70 billion US dollars," Chen said.

Chen renewed Taipei's call for the establishment of a mutual military trust platform to avoid unexpected clashes.

Taiwan's cabinet has approved a special military budget of 610 billion Taiwan dollars (18.2 billion US) for the purchase of advanced weaponry amid ongoing tensions with China.

The draft budget calls for the procurement of eight submarines, a modified version of the Patriot anti-missile systems PAC-III and a fleet of anti-submarine aircraft over a 15-year period commencing in 2005.

The US offered the military hardware to Taiwan in 2001 as part of its most comprehensive arms package to the island since 1992.

The US acknowledges Beijing's position that Taiwan is part of China and does not have official relations with the island.

However, Washington is bound by law to provide weapons to help Taiwan defend itself if its security is threatened and calls for peaceful settlement of the sovereignty dispute between Taipei and Beijing.

China, which split with Taiwan in 1949 at the end of a civil war, has repeatedly threatened to take the island by force should it declare formal independence.

WAR.WIRE