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.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
PROXIMITY: Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location, the Executive Yuan official said Taiwan plans to boost cooperation with the Czech Republic in semiconductor development due to Prague’s pivotal role in the European IC industry, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said. With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) building a wafer fab in the German city of Dresden, a Germany-Czech Republic-Poland “silicon triangle” is forming, Kung said in a media interview on the weekend after returning from a visit to Prague. “Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location,” he said. “Taiwan and Prague have already launched direct flights and it is
RSS