The government has thanked the US for agreeing to help upgrade the air force’s F-16A/B fleet, saying it was an indication of the US taking concrete action to implement the Taiwan Relations Act.
At a press conference called late on Wednesday night, Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) hailed the administration of US President Barack Obama for “responding to our request proactively by taking concrete actions to approve” the upgrade.
The US government formally notified Congress on Wednesday of its intent to sell Taipei military equipment and services worth about US$5.85 billion. The package includes upgrades of Taiwan’s F-16A/Bs, along with pilot training and spare parts, but does not include new F-16C/Ds that Taipei had wanted to modernize its arsenal.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Yang said that together with a previous arms sale worth US$12.5 billion, which the US offered Taiwan less than three years into President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) presidency, the US government has provided US$18.3 billion worth of weapons to Taiwan “on an unprecedented scale and pace.”
Ma yesterday also showed his thanks and reiterated his calls for the US to sell F-16C/Ds and other defensive weapons to Taiwan.
He stressed that buying weapons from the US does not signal any intention to engage in an arms race with China, but that it is necessary to maintain Taiwan’s defensive capabilities.
Photo: CNA
Ma added that these arms procurements were much larger than any under his two predecessors, former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
“The upgrade package will make the air force of the Republic of China the first fleet in the world equipped with AESA radars, which can effectively deal with [China’s] J-20s,” according to Chu An-nan (朱安南), deputy chief of the Air Force Headquarters.
However, polarized responses emanated from governing and opposition lawmakers.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) said that while the exclusion of F-16C/Ds from the package could bring to mind the phrase, “if you can’t have a fish, a shrimp can be just as good,” he said that he did not think the retrofit package was a shrimp. “It was a fish. In fact, a very big fish.”
Lin said he was “deeply moved” by the F-16A/B retrofit package because it was “far better than I had expected,” which he said showed the Obama administration “highly recognized” Ma’s efforts to pursue cross-strait peace and enhance Taiwan’s self-defense capability.
However, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ efforts to describe the US arms sale of F-16A/B upgrades as an “achievement” was regretful and contradictory.
“We don’t understand why the two ministries expressed gratitude when Taiwan came up short of its wish for F-16C/Ds procurement,” DPP spokesperson Kang Yu-cheng (康裕成) said, noting that Deputy Minister of National Defense Andrew Yang (楊念祖) in May explained to US officials why Taiwan desperately needs the F-16C/D and yet, on Wednesday night, he said the offered package was not a bad deal and he was not disappointed at all.
DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said the defense ministry was being contradictory when it said the upgraded F-16A/Bs would be better than the F-16C/Ds, yet at the same time said that it planned to push for the F-16C/D procurement.
DPP spokesperson Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said a number of US lawmakers expressed anger at the White House’s refusal to sell new jets to Taiwan and accused Obama of bowing to Chinese pressure, and yet “the defense ministry brags” about arms procurement and “describes it as an achievement.”
In Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry condemned the sale as undermining overall ties and military exchanges. Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) summoned US Ambassador Gary Locke in Beijing to complain. China’s Minister of Defense warned the US had “created severe obstacles for normal military-to-military exchanges between the two countries.”
The strong words are seen as rhetoric catering to the military and nationalistic public, who regard the US as an interloper that uses support for Taiwan as a means of restraining China’s rise, according to some observers.
Additional Reporting By CNA and AP
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
RSS