The Ministry of National Defense yesterday denied that senior officials had indicated during bilateral security talks in the US earlier this month that Taiwan could substantially lower the number of F-16C/D aircraft it seeks to procure from the US.
Citing unnamed military sources, the Chinese-language China Times and Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported that Deputy Minister of National Defense Andrew Yang (楊念祖) and National Security Council (NSC) Deputy Secretary-General Lu Hsiao-jung (陸小榮) had proposed during the annual US-Taiwan strategic dialogue meetings that Taiwan only acquire a squadron of 24 F-16C/Ds — far fewer than the 66 aircraft Taiwan has been seeking to procure since 2006.
Commonly known as the Monterey Talks, the meetings serve as a platform for Taiwanese and US officials to discuss bilateral defense issues, including arms sales.
According to the articles, the decision was made after the ministry concluded it could not afford both the procurement of 66 new aircraft and the retrofit of 146 F-16A/Bs currently in service.
The upgrade package, worth about US$5.2 billion, was notified to US Congress in September last year. The letter of offer and acceptance for the first part of the upgrade program, worth US$3.7 billion, was signed on July 13 during a meeting between Taiwanese and US officials in Washington. Retrofit work is scheduled to begin in 2016 and will last until 2028, with the first upgraded aircraft to be delivered in 2021.
So far Washington has turned down all attempts by Taipei to purchase the more advanced F-16C/D.
Responding to the reports, ministry spokesman Major-General David Lo (羅紹和) told a press conference yesterday that there had “absolutely been no such proposal.”
The NSC also denied the reports, saying that procurement decisions regarding the F-16 were the responsibility of the Air Force and the ministry. The Air Force also confirmed that no meetings had been held with the US on the F-16C/D issue.
The F-16A/B upgrade program occurs at a time when a number of aging aircraft are to be decommissioned, creating a shortfall for the Air Force. According to a Defense News last month, 56 Mirage 2000 and 45 near-obsolete F-5 fighters will soon be retired, bringing the fleet down from 373 aircraft to 272 by 2020, or 146 F-16A/Bs and 126 F-CK-1 Indigenous Defense Fighters, which are also undergoing mid-life upgrades since last year.
The number 24 is not a coincidence, as defense experts say this is the very minimum number of new aircraft that Taiwan must acquire to mitigate the impact of the looming fighter shortage.
US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond--Chambers, who is closely involved with the F-16 issue, said last month that 24 F-16A/Bs at a time would be pulled from front-line service during the upgrade program.
Industry sources say new F-16C/Ds could be delivered faster — as many as three years — than the upgraded F-16A/Bs.
Intelligence agents have recorded 510,000 instances of “controversial information” being spread online by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so far this year, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report yesterday, as it warned of artificial intelligence (AI) being employed to generate destabilizing misinformation. The bureau submitted a written report to the Legislative Yuan in preparation for National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen’s (蔡明彥) appearance before the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee today. The CCP has been using cognitive warfare to divide Taiwanese society by commenting on controversial issues such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investments in the
HELPING HAND: The steering committee of the National Stabilization Fund is expected to hold a meeting to discuss how and when to utilize the fund to help buffer the sell-off The TAIEX plunged 2,065.87 points, or 9.7 percent, to close at 19,232.35 yesterday, the highest single-day percentage loss on record, as investors braced for US President Donald Trump’s tariffs after an extended holiday weekend. Amid the pessimistic atmosphere, 945 listed companies led by large-cap stocks — including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Largan Precision Co (大立光) — fell by the daily maximum of 10 percent at the close, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The number of listed companies ending limit-down set a new record, the exchange said. The TAIEX plunged by daily maxiumu in just
INVESTIGATION: The case is the latest instance of a DPP figure being implicated in an espionage network accused of allegedly leaking information to Chinese intelligence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member Ho Jen-chieh (何仁傑) was detained and held incommunicado yesterday on suspicion of spying for China during his tenure as assistant to then-minister of foreign affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮). The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said Ho was implicated during its investigation into alleged spying activities by former Presidential Office consultant Wu Shang-yu (吳尚雨). Prosecutors said there is reason to believe Ho breached the National Security Act (國家安全法) by leaking classified Ministry of Foreign Affairs information to Chinese intelligence. Following interrogation, prosecutors petitioned the Taipei District Court to detain Ho, citing concerns over potential collusion or tampering of evidence. The
‘COMPREHENSIVE PLAN’: Lin Chia-lung said that the government was ready to talk about a variety of issues, including investment in and purchases from the US The National Stabilization Fund (NSF) yesterday announced that it would step in to staunch stock market losses for the ninth time in the nation’s history. An NSF board meeting, originally scheduled for Monday next week, was moved to yesterday after stocks plummeted in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s announcement of 32 percent tariffs on Taiwan on Wednesday last week. Board members voted to support the stock market with the NT$500 billion (US$15.15 billion) fund, with injections of funds to begin as soon as today. The NSF in 2000 injected NT$120 billion to stabilize stocks, the most ever. The lowest amount it
RSS