There is growing concern about possible nuclear weapons' activity in Taiwan, a respected US analyst said on Friday.
David Albright, president of the Washington think tank Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), said that in US circles "there is presently concern that Taiwan may be doing nuclear weapons planning now or thinking about it, particularly after the comment in the Taiwanese parliament."
People First Party Legislator Nelson Ku (
Premier Yu Shyi-kun denied that Taiwan was developing nuclear weapons.
But Albright said: "There is a buzz about Taiwan, about what they might be up to."
Albright said there is a commitment in the US government "to stop something in terms of even feasibility studies of secret nuclear weapons development before it develops."
He said that if Taiwan did something like that "its relationship with the United States would be threatened and then Taiwan would have no defense against China."
Albright has reported since 1997 on Taiwan after in that year revealing new information about Taiwan's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons through the 1980s.
He said then that the US and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had created a powerful set of constraints on Taiwan's pursuit of the bomb, a program Taipei claims to have abandoned.
Defense authorities said Thursday it was the country's standing policy not to develop or use nuclear weapons.
"We have made it clear that we will never develop, use or store nuclear weapons or related items," military spokesman Hang Suey-sheng said.
Yang Chao-yie (楊昭義), deputy chairman of the Atomic Energy Council, denied this week that Taiwan had conducted plutonium separation programs in the mid-1980s.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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