Taiwan is closely monitoring China’s latest advanced weapons development, a military spokesman said yesterday, in response to media reports that Beijing tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile earlier this year.
“It is the armed forces’ job to have a full grasp of the Chinese communist regime’s latest developments in terms of armaments and advanced weapon systems,” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Shih Shun-wen (史順文) told a news briefing.
The military would make a proper evaluation of China’s latest weapons, and develop a strategy and capabilities to safeguard national security, Shih said, without elaborating.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
Shih’s comments came after the Financial Times on Saturday last week published an article that quoted five unnamed sources as saying China had launched a hypersonic missile in the summer.
The missile flew through low-orbit space before cruising down and narrowly missing its target, the report said.
“The test showed that China had made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons, and was far more advanced than US officials realized,” two of the sources said.
Hypersonic missiles are much faster and easier to maneuver than conventional ones, meaning that they are more difficult to intercept.
On Monday, US Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament Robert Wood said that Washington was “very concerned” about the test, adding that it “had held back from pursuing military applications for this technology.”
China has denied the Financial Times report, saying that the test had actually been a routine spacecraft check.
Meanwhile, Shih said that the military had no comment about a CNN report on Sunday that said Taipei and Washington are discussing the early delivery of F-16V jets ordered by Taiwan.
Taiwan has purchased 66 new F-16Vs from the US, with deliveries expected to start in 2023.
However, due to the increasingly urgent security situation, Taiwan has asked the US to deliver the F-16Vs earlier, starting next year, CNN reported.
Aside from the 66 new F-16Vs, the air force in 2016 launched a program to retrofit its 141 F-16A/Bs into F-16Vs with more advanced avionics, including APG-83 scalable agile beam radar, a helmet mounted cueing system, and other flight management and electronic warfare systems.
A military source familiar with the matter last month told reporters that the air force has already successfully upgraded at least 42 of the 141 jets.
The air force has previously said that the upgrades are to be completed by 2023.
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