Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) said yesterday that if the US does not approve Taiwan’s arms procurement package, not only would it affect the nation’s defense capability but it would also lead other democratic countries to cast doubt on US pledges and its ability to promote democracy.
Chen, who is attending a defense industry conference in the US, told reporters that while the government of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is committed to improving relations with China, it puts national security first, and Taiwan needs a strong defense capability to negotiate from a position of strength.
Failure to upgrade Taiwan’s air force would cause a military imbalance between Taiwan and China, he said.
If Taiwan were to fall to China, it would break the chain of islands that make up the US’ forward line of defense in the region, he said.
Chen said the budget for buying F-16 aircraft had been approved by the legislature.
However, if the current arms sales package is not approved by the US, the budget would have to be resubmitted, and it is not certain that the funds would be available next time, he said.
Taiwan is seeking to buy seven weapons systems from the US — anti-tank missiles, Apache helicopters, Patriot PAC-3 missile batteries, diesel-electric submarines, P3C Orion anti-submarine aircraft, sea-launched Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Black Eagle helicopters.
The US State Department on Friday told Taiwanese media based in Washington that the arms procurement package was still under interdepartmental screening by the administration and that it would notify Congress immediately when it reaches a decision.
Congress was scheduled to enter into recess last Friday, but it was postponed for a week because of the deadlock over a US$700 billion bailout package for Wall Street.
Chen, who will also visit Taiwanese naval and air force officers being trained in California and Arizona, is the first Taiwanese defense minister to travel to the US since 2002, when Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) attended a similar conference in Texas.
In Taipei, Ministry of National Defense (MND) spokeswoman Major General Lisa Chi (池玉蘭) said the ministry’s resolve and stance on the arms package remains unchanged as it awaits the US administration’s decision.
The ministry is still hopeful that Washington will agree to sell the weapons systems to Taiwan, even though Congress will soon go into recess, she said.
“It has not yet come to the last moment,” she said. “We of course are still cautiously optimistic and hold out hope that the arms package will be approved.”
Although Congress is now focused on the bailout, it could also deal with other items during the session, possibly including the arms procurement package, she said.
On whether the ministry has a backup plan if the arms procurement package was stalled or scrapped, Chi said the ministry had prepared contingent measures to help build up the nation’s defense.
The cautious optimism contrasted with media reports that the arms package had no chance of passage this year.
Although a post-session notification is legal, it seems highly likely that the package will be left to the next US administration to deal with.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chu Fong-chih (朱鳳芝) yesterday said the stalled arms sales were a result of the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration’s constant provocation of the US when it was in office.
“We were victimized by the DPP,” she said.
DPP legislators, on the other hand, said the delay was the result of the Ma government’s apparent attitude of surrender toward China.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater