Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Taiwan’s biggest threat is from nature, not mainland China, President Ma Ying-jeou said today when outlining plans for the island’s military to do more to limit losses from natural disasters.

“The armed forces will have disaster prevention and rescue as their main job,” Ma said today after apologizing for his administration’s slow response to Typhoon Morakot, Taiwan’s deadliest storm in 50 years. “They have to change their strategy, tactics, their personnel arrangements, their budget and their equipment.”

Taiwan will spend $300 million to buy disaster relief helicopters and cancel 15 of its 60 orders for United Technology Corp. Blackhawk helicopters, Ma said today. As many as 500 people may be dead after Morakot struck Aug. 6-9, causing mudslides that buried villages.

“As a result of climate change, disasters like Morakot are not that unusual now, so we have to be prepared for the worst,” Ma said. The military’s “job of course is to defend Taiwan, but now our enemy is not necessarily the people across the Taiwan Strait, but nature.”

China, Taiwan’s largest export destination, has more than 1,000 missiles pointed at the island to stave off any moves toward formal independence. China deems Taiwan a part of its territory. The island exercises de facto independence with its own foreign policy, currency and elected government.

China is “willing to risk war to solve the Taiwan problem,” Taiwan’s defense ministry wrote in its 2008 National Defense Report. The two sides split in 1949 when Mao Zedong’s Communist Party took over the mainland and the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan after losing a civil war.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Culpan in Taipei at tculpan1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 18, 2009 09:15 EDT