The US has cleared a sale of advanced Patriot air defense missiles to Taiwan, the US Department of Defense said on Wednesday.
The department announced the contract late in the evening, allowing Lockheed Martin Corp to sell an unspecified number of Patriots, the American Institute in Taiwan said.
In a statement posted on its Web site on Wednesday, the department said the contract involved “basic missile tooling upgrades.”
The hardware, some of the best in its class, could shoot down Chinese short-range and mid-range missiles, defense analysts say.
BROADER PACKAGE
The sale rounds out a broad US$6.5 billion package of arms approved under former US president George W. Bush in late 2008, said Wendell Minnick, Asia bureau chief with Defense News.
“This is the last piece that Taiwan has been waiting on,” Minnick said.
China on Tuesday urged the US to cancel any arms sales plans to avoid damaging relations with Beijing.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) said the US should “cancel plans concerning arms sales to Taiwan and stop selling these weapons, to avoid damaging broader China-US relations.”
Meanwhile, Chinese Vice Admiral Yang Yi (楊毅) told the China News Service that though developing good ties between China and the US was important, some things could not be accepted.
“You can’t just be forebearing and conciliatory when it comes to the development of stable and healthy Sino-US relations, and especially when it comes to a question of principles, you should never blindly make concessions,” he said.
‘COUNTERMEASURES’
Some US companies that sell weapons to Taiwan also want to sell aircraft and other products to China, Yang, who is also a researcher at Chinese National Defense University’s Strategic Studies Institute, said, without naming any firms.
“Why don’t we take defensive countermeasures against them? Apart from just protesting to the US government and taking necessary steps, why don’t we put sanctions on these troublemakers?” he said.
The US switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, but it remains Taiwan’s biggest ally and is obligated by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to help Taiwan defend itself.
“Taiwan’s defense ministry looks favorably at the US continuing to sell Taiwan weapons for its self-defense,” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Major General Yu Sy-tue (虞思祖) said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AFP
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
REMINDER: Of the 6.78 million doses of flu vaccine Taiwan purchased for this flu season, about 200,000 are still available, an official said, following Big S’ death As news broke of the death of Taiwanese actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as Big S (大S), from severe flu complications, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and doctors yesterday urged people at high risk to get vaccinated and be alert to signs of severe illness. Hsu’s family yesterday confirmed that the actress died on a family holiday in Japan due to pneumonia during the Lunar New Year holiday. CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) told an impromptu news conference that hospital visits for flu-like illnesses from Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 reached 162,352 — the highest
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
RSS