No appetite for a fight
Dear Johnny,
I was wondering in light of uncertainties over the purchase of F-16s why Taiwan doesn’t simply work toward producing next-generation strike aircraft.
Taiwan has already developed and built the IDF [indigenous defense fighter], which came into being as a result of uncertainty over the US’ resolve/ability to supply appropriate aircraft for a credible defense of Taiwan.
So surely the ambiguities over which branch(es) of the US government were willing to sign off on an F-16 deal with Taiwan would again justify Taiwan producing its own jet fighters.
If anything, Taiwan’s ability to be self-sufficient in terms of armaments production will only grow more pertinent as Beijing increases its influence and leverage among special interest groups and factions in the various branches of the US government — as was seen when Beijing was able to use its purported influence over Iran and North Korea to get the George W. Bush administration to block and indefinitely delay bills authorizing the sale of F-16s to Taiwan.
It seems that Beijing’s ability to divide, conquer and manipulate is effectively paralyzing the decision-making process, and that this will only grow worse with Beijing’s increasing economic clout and influence.
Developing the ability to produce its own weaponry would be an ideal way for Taiwan to apply leverage on the US to supply weapons. If Sweden can produce a range of modern weaponry — including its own modern fighter aircraft, the Saab JAS 39 Gripen — then surely Taiwan, with more than twice the population of Sweden, can do the same.
But I am sure Taiwan’s desire not to provoke Beijing and subsequently threaten increasing peace and harmony across the Taiwan Strait is consistent with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pragmatism — and one reason why an indigenous strike aircraft will never see the light of day.
ANDREW WHYTE
Johnny replies: Lots of problems raised here, though the biggest problem is that it took me so long to reply to this letter. My apologies.
Taiwan’s arms predicament is both mystifying and compelling. No one in the world but the US will supply serious arms to Taipei, but both the Americans and the Taiwanese spend most of their time playing cosy-up-to-China diplomatic games and entertaining hostile constituencies — and by the time that any kind of understanding can be reached between the defense establishments of the two countries, the legislative branches weigh in, and usually on the side of retarding the development of an efficient and imposing deterrent.
The answer, you say, is to up indigenous weaponry. All well and good, but the delay between conception and delivery is so long and so full of capacity for error (if not subterfuge) that by that time China will have either sent in the stormtroopers or democratized.
There seems to be an assumption among the once-militant types in the KMT, especially those with legislative clout, that all it takes to defuse the China threat is talks and toasts and trips to middling Taiwanese cities.
None of this makes sense. China will wear Taiwan down until the pressure not only shuts down the possibility of a military response, but also an economic and financial response, before the political response finally phhhhfffffts into oblivion.
The “indigenous fighter” problem hinges not on the capacity to make arms but the lack of a fundamental instinct of defending against a looming predator.
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