The air force is currently recruiting retired F-5E fighter pilots to help train pilots of the Macedonian Air Force in operating and maintaining newly-acquired second-hand F-5Es, according to defense sources.
But an air force general, speaking on condition of anonymity, hinted that whether the program proceeds or not could depend on relations between Macedonia and Taiwan.
The recruitment campaign has been warmly welcomed by ex-combat pilots. The remuneration is said to be generous and to be paid in US dollars.
It is not known how many pilots will be needed, but a high-ranking air force official said the number will not be great since Macedonia has acquired only a small number of F-5Es from their former owners in Europe.
Only pilots who have retired within the last two years can apply for the vacancies. The training assistance is said to be part of a defense accord, which Taiwan and Macedonia signed last October when Macedonian defense minister Liuben Paunoski visited Taiwan.
Minister of National Defense Wu Shih-wen (伍世文) is reported to be planning a visit to Macedonia for talks related to the pilots' training.
The Macedonian embassy in Taipei declined to comment on the issue yesterday.
If the training goes ahead, Macedonia will become the latest country to benefit from training by Taiwan's air force.
The air force has provided similar assistance to friendly countries such as Singapore, Jordan and several others. The Singapore Air Force, for instance, was established under Taiwan's assistance. But ironically Singapore now has become a model for Taiwan's air force with its consecutive seven-year zero-crash record.
Despite the poor safety record of Taiwan's air force over recent years, Macedonia is seeking help from Taiwan in training its pilots mainly because Taiwan still maintains a large fleet of the outdated F-5Es.
There has been speculation in recent weeks about a possible switch of Macedonia's diplomatic relations to Beijing, as Macedonia aims to bring its foreign policy in line with that of the EU, a condition for EU membership which Macedonia currently seeks. All EU member states recognize Beijing and maintain no official relations with Taipei.
An air force general, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that whether the pilot training program in Macedonia could be carried out would depend on the development of diplomatic relations between Taiwan and Macedonia.
"What we see now is a not so happy picture. We will wait and see," the general said. He declined to elaborate on the issue.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has