The White House is refusing to negotiate with US Senator John Cornyn over his demands for greater “clarity” on whether the US will agree to the future sale of F-16C/D jets to Taiwan.
Despite enormous pressure, US President Barack Obama will not even discuss the issue.
Cornyn is putting the president’s feet to the fire by holding up the nomination of Mark Lippert for the job of US assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs.
It is an important job, and one that would make Lippert — nominated by Obama in October last year — the Pentagon’s top Asia official.
However, under the US political system, a senator has the power to put a “hold” on a presidential nomination and stop it going forward indefinitely.
Soon after the nomination was first made, Senator John McCain put it on hold until he was provided the details of a certain national security issue.
The White House negotiated with McCain, reached a compromise and the senator lifted his hold on the nomination last month.
Cornyn then stepped in and placed a new hold on the nomination — a well-established US Senate tactic to win concessions from the president.
Cornyn is furious because the White House last year refused to sell new F-16s to Taiwan and decided instead to upgrade the old versions of the fighters the country already owns.
The F-16C/Ds that Taiwan has been seeking for years are made in Texas and Taipei’s order for 66 of the fighters would have guaranteed a large number of local jobs that are now under threat as the assembly line prepares to close.
Cornyn has argued for the sale on the grounds that it is required under the Taiwan Relations Act and also that it would provide a desperately needed boost to the US economy.
Obama has not ruled out the sale of F-16C/Ds to Taiwan and his top aides say the issue remains under consideration.
In a letter to the president, Cornyn demanded “clarity” on the issue.
During an election year, with employment and the economy likely to be decisive issues, Cornyn is in effect trying to force the White House to agree to the sale and secure jobs in his home state.
However, sources close to Cornyn said that on this occasion, the White House has remained silent and made no attempt to negotiate with him.
Cornyn said at the end of last week: “More than anything, I’d like to engage in a discussion over how do we solve this problem.”
“So far they seem to act like they can just ignore it and it’s going to go away, but I’m not planning on going away,” he said.
UPGRADE: The Kang Ding-class frigate is replacing its Chaparall missiles with Tien Chien II and Hua Yang VLS, which would provide it with long-range, 360° air defense Taiwan plans to produce 1,200 to 1,376 Hai Chien II missiles (海劍二, Sea Sword II) — also known as TC-2N — to serve as the standard air defense system of the navy’s surface combatant fleet, a source said yesterday. Last week, the Hai Chien II, the naval version of the Tien Kung II missile (天劍二, Sky Sword II), completed a live-fire test in waters off the National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology’s Jiupeng facility (九鵬) in Pingtung County’s Manjhou Township (滿州). The MIM72 Chaparral and other dated air defense missiles that currently arm Taiwanese ships have inadequate range to combat Chinese
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS