The Air Force Command Headquarters on Jan. 8 inked a NT$2.33 billion (US$82.12 million) five-year contract with Aerospace Industrial Development Corp for the maintenance and repair of its F-16 jets, a source in the military said on condition of anonymity.
The deal would cover services through the end of 2025, the source said.
The F-16 maintenance center is expected to generate more than NT$79.5 billion in profits over 30 years and create more than 600 jobs.
With the help of the center, total profit in the industry would grow to about NT$200 billion.
At the center’s inauguration in August last year, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said it was an important step toward establishing an autonomous defense industry.
“We must defend our sovereignty, as well as maintain regional stability, neither of which can be attained without a strong national defense industry,” Tsai said at the time.
Attaining the capacity to maintain and repair the jets is a milestone for Taiwan’s national defense industry and a way to connect the domestic industry with the international community, she said.
The center was established with the aim to make Taiwan the maintenance and repair hub for for countries in the Asia-Pacific region with which Taiwan has friendly ties, but due to other concerns, it was decided that the center would primarily service domestic fighters, the source said.
The air force has 142 F-16s slated for upgrades.
The Ministry of National Defense has purchased an additional 66 F-16Vs from the US, bringing Taiwan’s fleet of F-16s to 208.
Separately yesterday, the Institute for National Policy Research held a panel discussion on the possible impact on regional security in the region, as well as Taiwan-US-China relations under the administration of US President Joe Biden.
National Defense University professor Ma Chen-kun (馬振坤) said that under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) directive to train Chinese military units in potential theaters of war, Beijing would likely increase the frequency of military exercises along its coast and near the first island chain.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would likely seek to consolidate its presence in the East China and South China seas, and in the Bashi Channel, making it more difficult for US forces to enter the region.
Taiwan should be aware that its southwestern air defense identification zone has become a PLA Air Force exercise area, Ma said.
The military should develop strategies to deal with Chinese planes, especially regarding the median line of the Taiwan Strait, as this area is more important than the nation’s southwestern zone, Ma said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching