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Ministry denies Cabinet halted fighter upgrades

An upgraded Taiwan-made Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF) “Goshawk” sits in a military hangar in Taipei yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense said it did not receive a request from the Cabinet to halt an IDF upgrade. PHOTO: HSU SHAO-HSUAN, TAIPEI TIMES

The Ministry of National Defense yesterday dismissed media reports that it had halted plans to upgrade the Taiwan-made Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF) warplanes at the request of the Cabinet to avoid undermining closer ties with Beijing.

Vice Minister of National Defense Lin Yu-pao (林於豹)aid at the legislature that both arms procurement from the US and the Hsiang Chan Project (翔展計畫) would proceed as scheduled.

The Hsiang Chan Project includes enhancing the IDF’s firepower, lengthening its range and providing it with the capability to attack Chinese radar control systems, runways, fuel depots and amphibious troops.

Lin said the project was of tremendous importance to the nation’s defense industry and that there was a major discrepancy between media reports and reality.

The ministry said that the government’s position on the matter had not changed.

The ministry’s response came after the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) quoted an unnamed military source as saying that the Cabinet had instructed the ministry to end the project next year.

The report said the Cabinet would still allocate next year’s NT$1 billion (US$32.8 million) budget for the Hsiang Chan Project, but that the Air Force should use the money for other purposes.

The report said that military officials were surprised by the Cabinet’s request, as in the past it would only ask the military to revise a budget and had never before canceled a project.

Military analysts were quoted as saying that the Cabinet could have made the decision to facilitate Taipei’s ongoing efforts to improve relations with Beijing.

Taiwan began to develop the IDF in 1980, when the US was unwilling to provide it with F-16s. Taiwan built 130 IDFs with the help of defense firm General Dynamics, which manufactures the F-16.

In 1992, Taiwan succeeded in ordering 150 F-16A/Bs from the US and 60 Mirage 2000-5s from France.

As the IDFs were more than 20 years old, and the Aerospace Industry Development Corp (AIDC) launched the NT$7 billion Hsiang Chan Project to upgrade the aircraft.

On March 29 last year, AIDC unveiled the first two upgraded IDFs to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
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