The air force is preparing to build a new fighter that has vertical/short taking off and landing (VSTOL) capabilities.
"Because of the strong likelihood that landing strips at air bases will come under intensive missile attack and be destroyed during a war with China, the air force considers fighters with VSTOL capabilities to be most suitable for Taiwan's defense," air force Commander Liu Kui-li (劉貴立) told the Chinese-language China Times daily yesterday.
"The air force is open to any kind of VSTOL fighters, and is not necessarily aiming for the US' Joint Strike Fighters [JSF] that are in development," he said.
Liu said the air force hopes to create the new fighter force by 2020. He said the upgrading of the fleet was necessary to counter Chinese military spending.
Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (李傑) last week told a press conference that the US refused to offer Taiwan its newest JSFs, which will come into service in the next few years. The Ministry of National Defense has calculated that Taiwan would find it difficult to procure the US model before 2020.
Lee said the ministry asked the US to sell Taiwan a number of decommissioned US F-15 Eagle fighters in last year's defense meeting between the two sides, but the US did not agree to the sale.
"Because of the gradual decommissioning of the aging US F-5Es and Taiwanese IDFs [Indigenous Defense Fighters] over the coming years, the air force is expected to be short by more than 40 fighters in 2015," Lee said.
Lee said the ministry hoped to procure more than 40 decommissioned F-15s to fill the vacuum in air defense before the next-generation fighter force is built.
However, Liu told the daily that the air force had evaluated the decommissioned F-15 fighters and decided they were too old to meet its requirements. He said the air force would continue to ask the US to help Taiwan enhance its F-16 Falcon force's capabilities, although the US has not agreed to do so to date.
Taiwan has 146 F-16s, 56 Mirage-2000s and 128 IDFs in its current fleet as well as more than 60 F-5Es. Liu said the F-16 and Mirage-2000 fighters would remain in service for another 15 to 20 years.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
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