The Ministry of National Defense yesterday denied that senior officials had indicated during bilateral security talks in the US earlier this month that Taiwan could substantially lower the number of F-16C/D aircraft it seeks to procure from the US.
Citing unnamed military sources, the Chinese-language China Times and Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported that Deputy Minister of National Defense Andrew Yang (楊念祖) and National Security Council (NSC) Deputy Secretary-General Lu Hsiao-jung (陸小榮) had proposed during the annual US-Taiwan strategic dialogue meetings that Taiwan only acquire a squadron of 24 F-16C/Ds — far fewer than the 66 aircraft Taiwan has been seeking to procure since 2006.
Commonly known as the Monterey Talks, the meetings serve as a platform for Taiwanese and US officials to discuss bilateral defense issues, including arms sales.
According to the articles, the decision was made after the ministry concluded it could not afford both the procurement of 66 new aircraft and the retrofit of 146 F-16A/Bs currently in service.
The upgrade package, worth about US$5.2 billion, was notified to US Congress in September last year. The letter of offer and acceptance for the first part of the upgrade program, worth US$3.7 billion, was signed on July 13 during a meeting between Taiwanese and US officials in Washington. Retrofit work is scheduled to begin in 2016 and will last until 2028, with the first upgraded aircraft to be delivered in 2021.
So far Washington has turned down all attempts by Taipei to purchase the more advanced F-16C/D.
Responding to the reports, ministry spokesman Major-General David Lo (羅紹和) told a press conference yesterday that there had “absolutely been no such proposal.”
The NSC also denied the reports, saying that procurement decisions regarding the F-16 were the responsibility of the Air Force and the ministry. The Air Force also confirmed that no meetings had been held with the US on the F-16C/D issue.
The F-16A/B upgrade program occurs at a time when a number of aging aircraft are to be decommissioned, creating a shortfall for the Air Force. According to a Defense News last month, 56 Mirage 2000 and 45 near-obsolete F-5 fighters will soon be retired, bringing the fleet down from 373 aircraft to 272 by 2020, or 146 F-16A/Bs and 126 F-CK-1 Indigenous Defense Fighters, which are also undergoing mid-life upgrades since last year.
The number 24 is not a coincidence, as defense experts say this is the very minimum number of new aircraft that Taiwan must acquire to mitigate the impact of the looming fighter shortage.
US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond--Chambers, who is closely involved with the F-16 issue, said last month that 24 F-16A/Bs at a time would be pulled from front-line service during the upgrade program.
Industry sources say new F-16C/Ds could be delivered faster — as many as three years — than the upgraded F-16A/Bs.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced