Taiwan received a letter of acceptance (LOA) for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) from the US on Friday last week, which must be authorized by the Legislative Yuan and signed before March 26 to ensure the systems can be obtained on time, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said today.
The HIMARS case is particularly time-sensitive and starting the schedule earlier would allow the systems to be obtained sooner, he said.
Further delays could have a significant impact, so the ministry hopes the legislature would authorize the signing as soon as possible, he added.
Photo: Cheng I-hwa, AFP
The 82 HIMARS at a cost of US$4.05 billion were included in a US$11.1 billion arms package the US approved for Taiwan on Dec. 17.
That package also covered Javelin missiles, Altius-700M and Altius-600 drones, TOW missiles, M109A7 self-propelled howitzers, C5ISR integrated technology systems, Harpoon missile follow-on support and helicopter parts.
Five of these items are covered in the Executive Yuan’s special defense budget that has been repeatedly blocked by opposition parties in the legislature.
Taiwan has now received LOAs for four out of five of these items.
The Ministry of National Defense previously said it had received LOAs for the TOW missiles, Javelin anti-armor missiles and M109A7 self-propelled howitzers.
As those letters are valid until Sunday, the ministry said it hopes the Legislative Yuan would grant prior authorization for their signing.
The ministry is still awaiting an LOA for the Altius-700M and Altius-600 drones.
The offer expires if the buyer does not sign the LOA by the deadline, and the deal needs to be reviewed again.
LOAs specify the costs, authorizes the sale and outlines terms for foreign military sales.
A special budget of NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.31 billion) was proposed by the Cabinet to cover the acquisition of domestic and foreign-made weapons systems over the next eight years, but opposition parties have only approved NT$400 billion in funding for the purchase of weapons in the US$11.1 billion arms package.
However, finding agreement on the LOAs with upcoming deadlines may happen before the funding bills are reconciled.
A motion submitted by the Taiwan People's Party to authorize the ministry to sign the first three LOAs advanced to a second reading on Friday, but cross-caucus negotiations would have to be held for the motion to advance further.
Meanwhile, Koo also denied media reports that MQ-9B SeaGuardian drone deliveries had been delayed and said no weapons deliveries have been postponed due to the conflict in the Middle East.
Taiwan has ordered four MQ-9B surveillance drones from the US, originally scheduled for delivery last year.
The timeline has since been pushed back to this year and next.
Air force Chief of Staff Lee Ching-jan (李慶然) told the legislature in November that the first batch of MQ-9B drones is scheduled to arrive in the third quarter of this year.
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
‘CRITICAL MOMENT’: Any delay in the passage of the remaining funds would weaken Taiwan’s security and play into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, the AIT said While welcoming the Legislative Yuan’s approval of a supplementary defense budget, the US Department of State said that further delays to Taiwan military spending are a “concession” to China. The remarks came after the legislature on Friday passed the budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of military equipment from the US, with total spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.82 billion). One package allocates NT$300 billion for arms sales approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, while the other sets aside NT$480 billion for an arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The
RSS