China is adding at least 75 ballistic missiles a year to its arsenal and is likely to have fielded 600 against Taiwan by 2005, the Pentagon's Taiwan desk officer said in remarks made public on Thursday.
"Taiwan faces the most daunting conventional ballistic missile threat in the world," said Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stokes, the Pentagon official.
Stokes made his remarks to a privately organized, closed-door US-Taiwan defense industry conference held in San Antonio, Texas, from Feb. 12 to Feb. 14. A copy of his presentation was made available to reporters by the Pentagon.
At the conference, Bush administration officials urged Taipei to move forward quickly with antimissile systems, notably Lockheed Martin's Patriot PAC-3, to counter the Chinese buildup in the short- and mid-term.
"We urge Taiwan to take steps needed to acquire defensive weapons and systems sufficient to address the ever increasing threat posed by [China]," Randall Schriver, the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told the conference.
Richard Lawless, who is the Pentagon's top policymaker on the region, said China was working on multiple ways to "coerce" Taiwan and that surprise and speed could render any US military assistance ineffective.
"Taiwan cannot rely on the United States to defend the island against [Chinese] conventional ballistic and land attack cruise missiles, particularly in the opening phases of a conflict," he said.
In addition to its ballistic-missile buildup, Beijing is expected to deploy first-generation cruise missiles designed to attack land targets before 2005, Stokes said.
Beside the Patriot PAC-3 system, another short- to mid-term option for Taipei could be the Arrow missile interceptor, developed jointly by Israel and the US and declared operational in October 2000, Stokes said.
Other options included upgrading the Tien-Jung 2A interceptors, reported to have been tested in 1998, and obtaining surface-launched US-built AMRAAM missiles, he said.
The US is weighing a Taiwanese request for immediate delivery of Raytheon-built AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air missiles purchased in 2000. The missiles were to be stored in the US until or unless China fielded a similar air-to-air system, something it may have since done, US officials have said.
Stokes said Taipei could receive early warning information from space-based sensors, by implication, from US systems.
Other overhead surveillance options included "high altitude/long endurance unmanned aerial vehicles," he said.
But he said missile defense does not "connote an alliance with the United States; nor does it constitute a global/regional organization in which Taiwan can `join.'"
The cost of a "point" defense, which would protect selected critical facilities and areas, need not be "exorbitant," he added.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS