US Representative Phil Gingrey said on Thursday it was “imperative” for the administration of US President Barack Obama to sell F-16C/D jets to Taiwan.
He was speaking as the House of Representatives opened debate on a bill that could order Obama to make the sale.
In a keynote address to the Heritage Foundation, Gingrey said the White House had failed to provide Taiwan with the arms that it needs.
The House was expected to vote yesterday on the National Defense Authorization Act and whether to include a Taiwan amendment to the Act.
Introduced by US Representative Kay Granger, the amendment would “instruct the President to carry out the sale of no fewer than 66 F-16C/D multirole fighter aircraft to Taiwan.”
Congressional sources said that the amendment was likely to be “bundled” with a number of other strongly supported amendments and pass by voice vote. It would then go to the Senate where again it has significant support.
In remarks prepared for delivery on the floor of the House, Granger was due to say: “Our ally Taiwan has been trying to buy these planes since 2007 while their air force continues to deteriorate. Not only is this sale good for the national security interests we share with Taiwan, it is also good for the US economy. In 32 different states, this sale would generate US$8.7 billion in economic output, produce an estimated US$768 million in federal tax revenues and create thousands of jobs.”
Gingrey, a co-chair of the Taiwan caucus, told the Heritage Foundation: “The United States and Taiwan have a very, very, important relationship. Yet despite a strong economic partnership, there are still challenges.”
He said that he had developed a “true concern” about the “unwillingness” of Obama to sell the F-16C/Ds.
The administration had taken a step in the right direction by agreeing to retrofit Taiwan’s fleet of older F-16 models, but that this was not enough, he said.
“Despite this step, I don’t think that the current administration is addressing the true problems that exist,” Gingrey said.
He said that a “simple retrofit” of the older F-16s did not meet the growing challenges that Taiwan faced from China.
Gingrey said that Granger was offering an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that called on the president to authorize the sale of no fewer than 66 F-16C/Ds to Taiwan.
“That bill is on the floor right now and we are debating amendments,” he said.
Gingrey said he “looked forward” to the adoption of the Taiwan amendment and that be believed the Senate would maintain it as the bill moved into the Conference Committee for final discussions.
“Given the broad congressional support, and White House acknowledgement of the growing disparity in aerial capability, it is imperative that we move forward with the sale of the F-16C/Ds to Taipei,” Gingrey said.
He went on to condemn Taiwan’s ban on US beef and said it was responsible for the long delay in starting trade talks that were for the “greater good” of both countries.
On the possible F-16C/D sale, Gingrey said it was necessary to put pressure on Obama to fulfill his “obligation.”
He said the sale would make diplomatic relations with China “dicey” and that in this election year the administration would have to handle it very carefully.
Director of Asian Studies at the Heritage Foundation Walter Lohman said he thought the Granger amendment would pass.
“It will be an interesting barometer on how effective pressure from Congress can be,” Lohman said.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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: