President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday thanked Washington for supplying new arms to Taiwan, saying it gave his administration more confidence when dealing with China.
Ma said he learned from the US media recently that there might be some new developments in the country’s arms procurement plans.
“We are happy to see such a development,” he said. “The US government’s arms sale to Taiwan is not only Washington’s obligation as stated in the Taiwan Relations Act but also conducive to stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
Ma said the country was thankful that the US government was resolute in its position on this issue and because of Washington’s insistence, the region would be safer and more prosperous.
Ma made the remarks while meeting a delegation led by Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, at the Presidential Office yesterday morning.
The Washington Post ran a Reuters story on Thursday saying that the US Department of Defense had awarded Lockheed Martin Corp a contract for selling an unspecified number of advanced Patriot missiles to Taiwan.
The report quoted defense analysts as saying that the hardware was among the best in its class and could shoot down Chinese short-range and mid-range missiles.
China was quick to denounce the plan and urged the US to scrap the planned sale.
The Chinese foreign ministry also demanded that Washington avoid arranging a meeting between US President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, the China Daily reported.
The Washington Post said the meeting and the arms sale could take place early in the year.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) urged Washington to “see clearly the harm [of any such moves] and cancel the arms sale plan to Taiwan so as to avoid disturbing the overall situation,” the China Daily said.
She called on the US to adhere to the three Sino-US joint communiques, especially the principles established in the Joint Communique on Aug. 17, 1982.
The communique states that the US intends to reduce gradually its sales of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution.
The China Daily said the revised arms sale proposal was announced by Robert Kovac, the acting US deputy assistant secretary of state for defense trade, in December.
The package includes design assistance on diesel-electric submarines and 60 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. In addition, more PAC-3 missiles, as well as an operations deal for a command and control program, were under discussion, the report quoted Kovac as saying.
The former administration of US president George W. Bush announced a US$6.5 billion arms package for Taiwan in October 2008. The deal included 30 Apache attack helicopters and 330 Patriot missiles. It was to be the biggest arms sale to Taiwan since China and the US signed the 1982 Communique.
The contract with Lockheed Martin Corp this time was a part of that deal in 2008.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS