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 can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
RSS