The administration of US President Barack Obama began the long process of briefing the US Congress on Friday about a new arms sales package for Taiwan that does not include desperately needed F-16C/Ds, sources said.
It is not clear exactly what is included — one source said it amounted to US$4.2 billion worth of materiel — but almost certainly does contain upgrades for the existing fleet of aging F-16A/Bs.
No official announcement has been made, but the full arms package is likely to become public next week when the White House formally sends it to Capitol Hill.
According to several well--informed sources, the news is not altogether bad.
“The decision not to sell the C/Ds is political and not -strategic, therefore it can be impacted if politics are brought to bear,” US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers told the Taipei Times.
There has already been a major bipartisan push from members of both the US House of Representatives and US Senate to sell the advanced F-16s to Taipei and according to insiders that push will be further intensified this fall.
While it is extremely difficult to forecast the outcome, there is some optimism that the C/D sale could still go through.
Republican Senator John Cornyn said on Friday that if the reports that Obama had decided not to sell the F-16C/Ds to Taiwan were true, they amounted to “capitulation to Communist China by the Obama administration.”
“It is a sad day in American foreign policy and it represents a slap in the face to a strong ally and long-time friend. This sale would have been a win-win, bolstering the national security of two democratic nations and supporting jobs for an American workforce that desperately needs them,” he said.
Just a few day ago, Cornyn and Democratic Senator Robert Menendez introduced legislation that would force Obama to sell the fighters.
“As analysts in the US have said time and again, a decision on F-16A/Bs doesn’t rule out the chance that C/Ds could be sold later,” the Wall Street Journal reported. “And given that support in both the House and Senate has swelled in recent months, it seems the fat lady has not yet sung on the newer jets.”
The issue is being handled with great care and sensitivity by the administration.
Questioned about reports that Obama had decided not to sell the F-16C/Ds to Taiwan, US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said: “We cannot brief on foreign military sales until Congress has been formally notified, so I’m not in a position to discuss that beyond saying that any actions that we take are in line with the Taiwan Relations Act, and are focused on meeting the defense needs of the Taiwanese. But at this point, we cannot speak to that until formal notification of Congress takes place.”
That answer had been coordinated with the US Department of State because when its spokesperson Mark Toner was asked about the arms sales he replied: “The US government doesn’t comment on any possible foreign military sales unless and until formal congressional notification has taken place, but, you know, US arms sales in general to Taiwan are guided by the Taiwan Relations Act and they are of course based on our assessment of Taiwan’s defense needs.”
Meanwhile, the Chinese Foreign Ministry warned that Washington should “avoid any unnecessary disturbance and damage to bilateral ties” and an official newspaper in Beijing said that “madmen” on Capitol Hill were pushing the F-16 sales and in doing so could pay a “disastrous price.”
The Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) said that Taiwanese-Americans were deeply disappointed at the reports that Obama had decided not to sell the F-16C/Ds.
“It is regrettable that the Obama administration is letting the PRC set the terms for US relations with a democratic Taiwan,” FAPA president Bob Yang (楊英育) said.
“President Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九)] has gone through the motions of requesting the new F-16C/Ds, but has not been serious about Taiwan’s defense, allowing the defense budget to wither and Taiwan’s capabilities to deteriorate,” he said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
RSS