US defense contractor Lockheed Martin says the US army has signed a letter of agreement with Taiwan to sell more than 400 Hellfire missiles in a deal worth US$50 million.
The Ministry of National Defense did not respond to the Lock-heed Martin announcement, citing its standard procedure of not commenting on arms purchases.
The Lockheed statement said the deal would involve the sale of more than 400 AGM-114M blast-fragmentation Hellfire rounds. Hellfire is an air-to-ground, laser-guided, subsonic missile with significant antitank capacity.
It can also be used as an air-to-air weapon against helicopters or slow-moving fixed-wing aircraft.
"The Taiwanese Hellfire purchase comprises the largest part of the US government's Hellfire missile ... contract award to Lockheed Martin. The new contract equates to approximately six months of activity on the Hellfire production line at Lockheed Martin's manufacturing plant in Troy, [Alabama]," the statement said.
"The Taiwan portion represents approximately 70 percent of the rounds to be delivered, between 5-10 percent are earmarked for Israel, with the balance going to the US army. Work on the missiles began earlier this year," it added.
Lockheed Martin said that in Afghanistan and Iraq, Hellfire proved extremely effective against ships, light armor and urban targets.
"Hellfire's lethality and combat-proven performance, coupled with its precision-strike capability, provides Taiwan with the best air-to-ground weapon system in the world," the statement quoted Mark Stenger, director of the Air-to-Ground Missile Systems Program at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Orlando, as saying.
"Taiwan's decision to purchase Hellfire ensures its military's interoperability with the US army, marine corps and special operations forces deployed worldwide," it said.
Military analyst Lee Shih-ping said the missiles could be used to block an amphibious landing on Taiwan in the event of an attack by Chinese troops.
"They are probably laser-guided missiles to be equipped on OH-58D or AH-1W attack helicopters. It is a large supply if you consider how many tanks they can hit," Lee said.
Beijing has strongly protested US arms sales to Taiwan, calling them "the main obstacle" to unification of China.
Washington's largest arms sale to Taiwan involved 150 F-16 warplanes, approved in 1992 by former US president George Bush.
The Legislative Yuan is currently debating a NT$610.8 billion (US$19.2 billion) budget to buy eight diesel submarines, 12 P-3C anti-submarine aircraft and six sets of PAC-III anti-missiles from the US.
US President George W. Bush approved the sale in 2001 to boost Taiwan's defenses, but opposition lawmakers have been blocking passage of the budget, saying the prices are too high and the delivery too late.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS