Taipei has employed nine different lobbying companies and spent more than US$1 million so far this year in an attempt to persuade Washington to sell it F-16C/D aircraft, according to The Hill, a paper focusing on Capitol Hill.
Most of the campaign has been aimed at pushing the US Congress to put pressure on US President Barack Obama.
Those efforts have been led by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US (TECRO) in Washington.
According to The Hill, the lobbyists now say that Obama decided against the F-16 sale “for fear of provoking China.”
Sean King, vice president of lobbyist Park Strategies, told The Hill: “Considering Taiwan would only use these planes for defensive purposes, it was a short-sighted blunder on the administration’s part not to sell Taiwan the new planes.”
“We can’t let ourselves be bullied by Beijing. After all, the United States is mainland China’s No. 1 nation-state export market. Beijing needs us more than we sometimes realize,” King said.
US Justice Department records seen by The Hill show that former Republican senators Alfonse D’Amato and Frank Murkowski and former Republican representative Vito Fossella are among the lobbyists on Taiwan’s payroll.
Lobbyists from Park Strategies — D’Amato’s firm — contacted members of Congress 44 times about the F-16 sale and have been paid US$250,000 so far this year.
Another lobbying company, Orion Strategies — headed by Randy Scheunemann, a foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign — has earned US$78,000 working on the F-16 campaign.
Among other tactics, the lobbyists helped persuade 181 House members and 45 senators to sign letters to the White House pushing for the sale.
It appears the lobbyists are still being paid and are now trying to build support for congressional bills that would force Obama to sell the F-16s to Taiwan.
While difficult, passing such a bill is “possible,” one of the lobbyists says.
In an article headlined “The Taiwanese Disconnect,” the Wall Street Journal said this week that the decision not to sell the F-16s was a “victory for China” and added: “While it’s true Washington must put its own interests first, those interests aren’t served by helping turn Taiwan into a de facto garrison for the People’s Liberation Army.”
And Joseph Bosco, writing in the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard, said: “It is far too fatalistic to conclude that Communist China’s incorporation of democratic Taiwan is inevitable and equally defeatist to believe that the US cannot realistically prevent such an outcome.”
“The Obama administration’s upgrades to Taiwan’s current fleet of F-16s cannot match the capabilities of China’s Su-27 and Su-30 fighter aircraft, but the faster new F-16C/D models which Taiwan has urgently requested would fit the bill,” said Bosco, a national security consultant who served as the China desk officer at the Pentagon from 2005 to 2006.
GEARING UP: An invasion would be difficult and would strain China’s forces, but it has conducted large-scale training supporting an invasion scenario, the report said China increased its military pressure on Taiwan last year and took other steps in preparation for a potential invasion, an annual report published by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday showed. “Throughout 2023, Beijing continued to erode longstanding norms in and around Taiwan by employing a range of pressure tactics against Taiwan,” the report said, which is titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2024.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force, if perceived as necessary by Beijing, while simultaneously deterring, delaying or denying
‘LAGGING BEHIND’: The NATO secretary-general called on democratic allies to be ‘clear-eyed’ about Beijing’s military buildup, urging them to boost military spending NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte mentioning China’s bullying of Taiwan and its ambition to reshape the global order has significance during a time when authoritarian states are continuously increasing their aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. In a speech at the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte said Beijing is bullying Taiwan and would start to “nibble” at Taiwan if Russia benefits from a post-invasion peace deal with Ukraine. He called on democratic allies to boost defense investments and also urged NATO members to increase defense spending in the face of growing military threats from Russia
PEACEFUL RESOLUTION: A statement issued following a meeting between Australia and Britain reiterated support for Taiwan and opposition to change in the Taiwan Strait Canada should support the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s destiny according to the will of Taiwanese, Canadian lawmakers said in a resolution marking the second anniversary of that nation’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Monday. The Canadian House of Commons committee on Canada-Chinese relations made the comment as part of 34 recommendations for the new edition of the strategy, adding that Ottawa should back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, first published in October 2022, emphasized that the region’s security, trade, human rights, democracy and environmental protection would play a crucial role in shaping Canada’s future. The strategy called for Canada to deepen
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
RSS