At a US-Taiwan semi-official meeting later this week, the US side is expected to voice frustrations over Taipei's lack of progress in preparing financing for an extensive arms package that US President George W. Bush agreed to sell to Taiwan in 2001, the Taipei Times has learned.
Senior Taiwanese military officials will meet their US counterparts and representatives of the American defense industry in San Antonio, Texas, tomorrow and Friday.
The meeting, organized by the US-Taiwan Business Council, is intended to advance bilateral security arrangements.
But the US side is expected to voice its frustration at the lack of progress with the financing and other preparations to complete the purchases of the arms package, which includes Kidd-class destroyers and submarines, sources said.
"There is a growing sense that Taiwan is treading water," one participant said.
Some on the US side feel that Taiwan is trying to take advantage of what it sees as Washington's unconditional commitment to aid Taiwan if China attacks, by delaying committing funds and resources to the purchases.
Vice Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (
Discussions will deal with Taiwan's future defense needs and strategy, the Legislative Yuan's budget process, the defense ministry, procurement procedures, the development of Taiwan's defense industry, missile defenses and the so-called C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance).
But the real work is expected to happen during discussions between military personnel, defense contractors and civilian specialists.
The specialists will include retired admiral Dennis Blair, the former commander of US forces in the Pacific; Kurt Campbell, who held Lawless' job in the Clinton administration, and former US secretary of defense William Cohen, who is now the business council's chairman.
"Very little progress has been made on the purchase of [the weapons systems] and then on the very difficult process of integrating them [into Taiwan's military]," said Rupert Hammond-Chambers, the council's president.
"The council would like to see this meeting used to make some headway there. Many defense companies have experience in integration of these systems and we would like those lessons to be learned," he said.
The meeting is the second in an annual series that the council hopes to make a regular feature of bilateral military dialogue, Hammond-Chambers said.
The idea of the meetings went back to May 2001, the month after Bush agreed to the multi-billion-dollar arms package, which included four Kidd-class destroyers and up to eight diesel-powered submarines, as well as advanced missile systems.
The impetus behind the meetings was the increasing difficulty US defense contractors were having in Taipei contacting and dealing with government officials.
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