The air force yesterday said it would seek to purchase an advanced radar system from the US as part of a package to upgrade its aging F-16A/B fleet and denied a report that it would buy a downgraded system from Washington.
The US in September last year agreed to help Taiwan upgrade its 145 F-16A/B aircraft at an estimated cost of US$5.1 billion.
The Chinese-language United Daily News reported yesterday that the air force had to pay for the US to downgrade the 176 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar systems that were included in the package.
However, the air force said in a statement it would make a request to the US to purchase the same type of radar used by the US military.
Two US firms — Raytheon and Northrop Grumman — produce the AESA systems.
“There is no such thing as buying downgraded equipment,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Taipei would also continue to negotiate with Washington on lowering the costs in the package allocated to research and development, the statement said.
The Taipei Times reported last week that the Executive Yuan was only allocating US$3.7 billion for the upgrade program.
In the ongoing talks with the US on the details of the package, the air force is expected to ask that work on the upgrade project be carried out jointly in hopes that a transfer of technological capabilities will enhance Taiwan’s defense industry.
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