Vice Minister of National Defense Chang Liang-jen (張良任) said yesterday the military would continue efforts to purchase F-16C/D fighter jets from the US.
“We have tried many times, but it never worked out. We haven’t given up hope,” Chang told lawmakers on the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee yesterday.
Chang’s remarks came after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) stressed the need for Taiwan to continue acquiring weapons from the US, such as diesel submarines and the fighter jets, during a videoconference call with China experts in Washington on Wednesday night.
Chang said the military would continue to communicate and negotiate with the US government regarding potential arms sales.
“We have to reach an agreement with the US. That is the first step,” Chang said. “They did not close the door on the two arms packages, so there is still a chance.”
When asked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) what the Air Force would do if the US continued to delay a decision on the procurement or declined it completely, Chang Liang-jen said the military would have to come up with a contingency plan.
“Air Force technicians continue to develop and upgrade existing aircraft,” he said.
When asked about the possibility of contact between high-ranking Taiwanese officers and their Chinese counterparts during an Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies seminar being held in August in Hawaii, Chang Liang-jen said the Ministry of National Defense had no plans for a meeting or any form of communication with the Chinese.
He said that Taiwanese officers have been participating in the annual seminar in Hawaii for years, but up until now the Chinese military had refused to send any representatives to the event.
“We do not have any comment on this at the moment. Even if our officers meet with Chinese officers during the seminar, it does not necessarily mean that any relationship will be established,” Chang Liang-jen said.
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:
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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