It is going to take “Herculean” efforts to persuade US President Barack Obama and his closest advisers to sell F-16C/D fighters to Taiwan, US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers said on Wednesday.
He said he believed the US administration would agree to “retrofit” Taiwan’s fleet of 145 F16s, but sounded very doubtful about the future sale of new fighters.
Taipei has asked to buy 66 new F16s and the request is “under consideration” by the White House.
Recently published Pentagon studies show that the balance of power across the Taiwan Strait has tilted solidly in China’s favor and that Taiwan’s air force is in desperate need of new fighters.
Addressing a forum on “China Policy Challenges for the New Congress” on Capitol Hill, Hammond-Chambers said that the Obama administration seemed to be increasingly “risk adverse” when it came to selling arms to Taiwan.
Given Beijing’s forceful opposition to the sale of F16s to Taiwan, he said it was going to be particularly difficult to secure the sale.
Hammond-Chambers told the forum, organized by the International Assessment and Strategy Center, that the military threat from China was the single most important dynamic of those issues that define what it means to be Taiwanese.
He said there was a deep-rooted and ever-increasing suspicion about China’s intentions for Taiwan.
Hammond-Chambers said he could not remember a period in which there had been less ambition for the bilateral relationship.
“There is little ambition to take advantage of reconciliation across the Strait or to seize this as an opportunity to improve our relationship. Taipei and Washington seem distracted with their relationship with Beijing and that is unfortunate,” he said.
Senior US officials were spending the bulk of their time reassuring allies in East Asia and looking for ways to “beef up” security relationships with those allies, he said.
However, he did not believe this would spill over into the US’ relationship with Taiwan.
“I don’t see the commensurate adjustment in the US-Taiwan security relationship that we are seeing with [South] Korea, Japan, Australia and others,” he said.
US Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a member of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs, said China was governed by a regime of “tyrants and gangsters.”
He said that Taiwan had elected a government that believed in “acquiescing” and taking a “soft approach” to Beijing.
Rohrabacher said Taiwan was “petting” the Chinese dragon even though it knew the dragon was full of teeth and fire and blood.
North Korea was China’s “puppet and lap dog,” he said, adding that China was using the North to try to intimidate Japan.
“They are trying to make the people of Japan cower in the same way that the people of Taiwan have decided to cower, but they are not going to succeed,” he said. “The Japanese people are tough and courageous.”
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
The Taipei District Court today ruled to extend the incommunicado detention of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇) for two more months as part of an ongoing corruption trial. Codefendants in the case — real-estate tycoon Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京) and Ko's former mayoral office head Lee Wen-tsung (李文宗) — were granted bail of NT$100 million (US$3.4 million) and NT$20 million respectively. Sheen and Lee would also be barred from leaving the country for eight months and prohibited from contact with, harassing, threatening or inquiring after the case with codefendants or witnesses. The two would also be