Taiwan is to submit a letter of request to purchase Lockheed Martin F-35 jets, top defense officials told their US counterparts at the Monterey Talks in Hawaii last week, the highest-level defense dialogue between the two nations.
Although US officials prior to the talks privately urged Taiwanese officials on several occasions to forgo asking for the jets, National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General York Chen (陳文政) told them at the meeting that Taiwan remains committed to the request, an anonymous government source said.
US officials were cited by the source as saying that US President Donald Trump’s administration cannot agree to sell Taiwan the fighters, and the nation should consider its defense needs pragmatically.
Photo: AFP
The delegation was headed by Chen, Vice Minister of National Defense Admiral Pu Tze-chun (蒲澤春) and Major General Hung Kuang-ming (洪光明), the deputy military attache.
The US officials at the meeting included US National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs Mathew Pottinger and US Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense David Helvey.
No senior US Department of State officials attended.
The US officials said all arms sales to Taiwan approved by the Trump administration have been weaponry or equipment requested from former-US president Barrack Obama’s administration, the source said.
Taiwanese officials were told that the request for F-35 jets would require a new letter that must be evaluated by the departments of state and defense, the source said.
While it is relatively easy for Taiwan to buy stockpiled missiles and other munitions, it is considerably more difficult to buy new platforms, they said.
Furthermore, the US government does not encourage foreign governments to submit letters of request for arms that the US has expressed a disinterest in selling, the source said.
When Chen spoke of how Chinese military aircraft have been skirting Taiwan’s airspace, Pottinger said the US “understands” Taiwan’s position, but did not elaborate.
Taiwanese officials asked the US to begin cooperation of cyber security and requested assistance for an indigenous submarine program, the source said.
Admiral Harry Harris — commander of US Pacific Command — was not at the talks, but met the delegation separately at the Pacific Command headquarters, the source said.
This story has been corrected since it was first published.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
CHINESE INCURSIONS, SORTIES: President William Lai thanked military officers for shouldering the responsibility of defending the survival and development of Taiwan President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that aggression would inevitably fail, pointing — on the day before a mass military parade in Beijing — to the lessons from World War II and key victories Taiwan claims against Chinese forces in 1958. Taiwan has over the past five years repeatedly complained about heightened Chinese military activity including war games around the nation as Beijing steps up pressure to enforce territorial claims that Taipei rejects. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, are to oversee a military parade in Beijing today to mark the
RSS