The government will have to wait on its request to buy 66 F-16C/D jet fighters from the US, a daily newsletter said in Washington on Friday.
The report came just days after the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday approved a resolution that aims to put pressure on the administration of US President George W. Bush to allow Taiwan to purchase the fighter aircraft, despite US State Department efforts to obstruct the sale.
The Nelson Report, which caters to politicians in the US capital, quoted sources close to the Bush administration as saying that the purchase would not happen soon, if at all.
The sources said that the White House, not the State Department or the Department of Defense, was blocking the deal.
The report also said that Bush was holding on to control over US-Taiwan policy and was concerned that sending positive signals to President Chen Shui-bian (
Although the Taiwan Relations Act allows the US to sell arms to Taiwan based solely on Taiwan's defense needs, the report said that the Bush administration felt separating the issue from US-China relations was difficult.
The report quoted the sources as saying that the Taiwan Relations Act did not necessarily justify the sale of F-16s to Taiwan's military and that the administration was debating Taiwan's defense needs.
US President Donald Trump said "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," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "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," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
Snow this morning fell on Alishan for the first time in seven years, as a strong continental cold air mass sent temperatures plunging across Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The Alishan weather station, located at an elevation of about 2,200m in central Taiwan, recorded snowfall from 8:55am to 9:15am, when the temperature dropped to about 1°C, the CWA said. With increased moisture and low temperatures in the high-altitude Alishan area, the conditions were favorable for snow, CWA forecaster Tsai Yi-chi (蔡伊其) said. The last time snow fell at the Alishan weather station was on Jan. 10, 2018, while graupel fell there
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