South Korea yesterday said it would not send its F-35 jet fleet to Japan for heavy airframe maintenance, one of the two Asian hubs chosen by the US to service the Lockheed Martin Corp stealth fighter.
Instead, it is likely to fly the jets to Australia, about eight times further away than Japan and well beyond their operating range. The three nations — all key US allies — are the only regional players to have ordered the F-35s.
The F-35 program has been lauded as an example of the US and its allies working together to bolster interoperability, but in Asia, the maintenance plan is exacerbating a traditional rivalry between Seoul and Tokyo.
US Air Force Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan, who runs the F-35 program for the US, told reporters on Wednesday that Japan would handle heavy maintenance for the jets in the northern Pacific staring in early 2018, with Australia to handle maintenance in the southern Pacific.
“There will never be a case where our fighter jets will be taken to Japan for maintenance,” said an official at South Korea’s arms procurement agency, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.
“South Korea has the right to decide where to conduct maintenance for its F-35 jets, and it will decide whenever the need arises,” the official added.
The plan for now is for the 40 F-35s set to be acquired by South Korea to be serviced in Australia, an Australian Department of Defence source told reporters on condition of anonymity.
South Korea is to receive the first of its stealth planes in 2018.
A source familiar with the F-35 program said South Korea could — at a later stage — negotiate with Washington about the possibility of handling the heavy maintenance of its own F-35 jets.
Such a deal would require a significant investment by Seoul, including specialized equipment used to test the jets’ stealth.
However, barring unforeseen circumstances, the jets are not likely to require much heavy maintenance until five years after their delivery, said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Heavy maintenance involves repairs that get into the structure of the airplanes.
“At the moment, the regional hub in Japan will deal with the 42 Japanese F-35s. We will discuss with the Pentagon what others will be handled in Japan,” Japanese Ministry of Defense Aircraft Division Deputy Director Katsuyuki Komatsu said at a briefing in Tokyo.
He said that the discussion would cover the F-35s to be operated by South Korea and those to be flown by the US from bases in northeast Asia.
Bogdan said the F-35 program office would re-examine the maintenance assignments every two to three years, providing opportunities for other nations with F-35s to benefit from a market valued at billions of US dollars in coming years.
The US$399 billion weapons program has already produced 120 jets, with the US and foreign militaries gearing up to start operating the fighters around the world in coming years.
In Japan, the airframe maintenance decision benefits Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which is already slated to run the final assembly and checkout plant being built in Japan at a cost of ￥63.9 billion (US$538.92 million).
Future engine work in Japan would be done by IHI Corp, which is already building engine components for Japan’s F-35s, a source familiar with the program said.
In Australia, the airframe maintenance work could be done by Britain’s BAE Systems, although the Australian government could opt to complete the work, the source said.
“The Australian defense industry stands to win well in excess of A$1.5 billion [US$1.22 billion] in related production and support work over the life of the program,” Australian Minister for Defence David Johnston said in a statement.
An Australian university student who has never visited China and has only a modest social media following would seem an unlikely target for the Chinese government. However, when a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman personally denounced Drew Pavlou at a news conference, it was just the next phase in an extraordinary campaign against the 21-year-old that has fueled concerns over China’s targeting of critics overseas. Pavlou first placed himself in the superpower’s sights when in July last year he organized a small sit-in at the University of Queensland, where he studies, to protest against various Chinese government policies. Since then, the Global
‘ASKED TO MOVE OUT’: Indonesian coast guard personnel argued with a Chinese vessel over territorial claims after it entered the country’s exclusive economic zone An Indonesian patrol ship confronted a Chinese coast guard vessel that spent almost three days in waters where Indonesia claims economic rights and that are near the southernmost part of China’s disputed claims to the South China Sea. The Indonesian Maritime Security Agency on Friday night detected Chinese ship 5204 entering Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in what Indonesia calls the North Natuna Sea. The agency sent a patrol ship that closed within 1km of the Chinese coast guard vessel and they communicated to affirm their position and their nation’s claims to the area, Indonesian Maritime Security Agency head Aan Kurnia said. “We
BEFORE WINTER COMES: Snow cuts off roads into Ladakh for four months or more each year, so the crunch is on to get food, tents and high-altitude equipment to Leh From deploying mules to large transport aircraft, the Indian military has activated its entire logistics network to transport supplies to thousands of troops for a harsh winter along a bitterly disputed Himalayan border with China. In the past few months, one of India’s biggest military logistics exercises in years has brought vast quantities of ammunition, equipment, fuel, winter supplies and food into Ladakh, a region bordering Tibet that India administers as a union territory, officials said. The move was triggered by a border standoff with China in the snow deserts of Ladakh that began in May and escalated in June into hand-to-hand
Since her personal telephone number was posted online, Hong Kong democracy advocate and Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions chairperson Carol Ng has received menacing calls from strangers and been bombarded with messages calling her a “cockroach.” She is not alone. A sophisticated and shady Web site called HK Leaks has ramped up its “doxxing” — where people’s personal details are published online — of Hong Kong democracy advocates, targeting those it says have broken Hong Kong’s National Security Law. Promoted by groups linked to the Chinese Chinese Communist Party and hosted on Russia-based servers, HK Leaks has become the most prominent “doxxing”
RSS