The George W. Bush administration should send AIM-120 advanced air-to-air missiles to Taiwan as soon as they are produced this year in view of China's advances in its missile arsenal, a group of four US senators has urged.
In a letter Tuesday to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the senators said the administration should reverse the decision made when the missiles were promised to Taiwan to keep them in the US until China deploys similar operational capabilities.
They also disclosed that Taiwan is seeking to buy more of the missiles, but the purchase may hinge on the delivery of the first batch.
In its annual arms sale to Taiwan in 2000, the Bill Clinton administration agreed to sell Taiwan up to 120 of the AIM-120s, also referred to as AMRAAMs, with the proviso that Taiwan would not take delivery right away, an action that was criticized by Taiwan supporters in Washington at the time.
Pressure to deliver the missiles, which are expected to be available soon, grew earlier this month when the Washington Times reported that China had successfully fired a Russian-made AA-12 Adder missile.
The development brought China closer to parity with Taiwan's air capabilities in the Strait, military analysts said.
It also met the criterion set by the administration for transferring the AMRAAMs to Taiwan, they said.
It is understood that some high-level administration officials have been urging the early transfer of the missiles, but that no decision to reverse the Clinton decision has been made.
The AA-12 is a "beyond visual range" weapon in that a pilot does not have to see a target in order to hit it. It has a 50km range and can hone in on aircraft at four times the speed of sound.
"We believe that China's tests of the AA-12s should trigger the transfer of the AIM-120s to Taiwan as soon as they are produced," the senators said. "We understand that these missiles are currently under production, and that the first eight will be finished next month.
"Furthermore, we are told that there are negotiations underway for the sale of an additional 286 AIM-120s, but that Taiwan's legislature may not fund another contract unless the State Department's policy is changed to allow the actual transfer of the missiles," they said.
Signing the letter were former foreign relations committee chairman Jesse Helms, Republican Jon Kyl, Republican Robert Smith, and Democrat Robert Torricelli.
The lawmakers called the AA-12 firing a "major shift in air power across the Taiwan Strait.
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