US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has warned China about intercepting US reconnaissance flights over the Taiwan Strait.
He was speaking in Washington following the revelation this week that two Chinese Su-27 fighter planes entered Taiwanese airspace last month as they attempted to drive away a US U-2 spy aircraft.
Military sources said one of the Chinese fighters did not leave Taiwanese airspace until after the Taiwan Air Force scrambled two F-16 aircraft to intercept it.
Mullen, in a briefing to foreign press based in Washington on Monday, said he has discussed reconnaissance operations with Chinese Chief of the General Staff General Chen Bingde (陳炳德) in the US and during a recent visit to Beijing.
Asked directly about the incident above the Taiwan Strait, Mullen said: “This is international airspace and we won’t be deterred from flying in international airspace.”
He said that under international standards in place for “a long, long time,” the US had the right to fly over the area.
Mullen acknowledged that China wanted the flights to end and for the US to stop reconnaissance over the Taiwan Strait.
However, he said: “I don’t see that as the case. We’re not going to do that. These reconnaissance flights are important.”
“I think we both have to be very careful about how we fly them. We have to be careful about the intercepts. We have to make sure that we don’t repeat what happened in 2001. These are lives that are at stake up there,” Mullen said.
Mullen added that intercepts escalated the tension and “could put countries in a position to miscalculate and go in the wrong direction with respect to stability and peaceful resolution of these kinds of things.”
The admiral, who retires on Sept. 30, was referring to what became known as the Hainan Island incident of April 1, 2001, when a US EP-3 intelligence aircraft and a Chinese J-8 fighter collided, causing the death of the Chinese pilot. The EP-3 was forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan, resulting in an international dispute.
Taiwan supporters in the US have been quick to point out that the latest incident over the Taiwan Strait dramatically demonstrates the need for the US to update -Taiwan’s aging F-16A/B aircraft and sell Taipei 66 new advanced F-16C/D aircraft.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed last week that a decision about the fighters would be announced by Oct. 1.
Asked if he thought the US would sell Taiwan the new F-16s, Mullen said: “It’s really a decision for the president of the United States to make and I would not preview that even if I knew what the president was going to do.”
“This is an issue that General Chen Bingde and I discussed when he was here, both privately and publicly, same thing when I was in China. I am aware that this is an issue of great interest not just in the US, but also in China. Clearly, the Chinese would strongly prefer us to stop doing this [selling arms to Taiwan],” Mullen said.
“The point I made to General Chen was that we have a relationship and responsibilities, and they’re legal responsibilities, in my country to support the Taiwan Relations Act. I would hope that in future, when we come up against these very difficult issues, whether they’re reconnaissance operations, South China Sea, Taiwan arms sales, that we are able to sustain the military relationship, which has been renewed,” he said.
In the past, China has broken off the military-to-military relationship with the US as a result of new arms sales to Taiwan.
Mullen said that the military-to-military relationship was “critical” and that terminating it even for brief periods of time had “a significant down side that works against stability in the region.”
“When we have another bump in the road, should that occur, I hope we can work our way through that with the Chinese military,” he said.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
RSS