Taiwan is to take delivery of two General Atomics MQ-9B SkyGuardian drones from the US in 2026 and another two by 2027, a US Air Force spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The spokesperson in an e-mail to the Central News Agency confirmed that Taiwan had purchased the four drones, two mobile ground control systems and related equipment from the US for US$467 million.
They are to be delivered in two batches, in 2026 and 2027, they said.
Photo: Reuters
The purchase was approved by Washington in November 2020 and the contract was delivered to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc in May last year, for completion by May next year.
The US Department of Defense reannounced the deal last week, leading some media to mistakenly report that Taiwan had purchased another four SkyGuardian drones.
The 2020 announcement of the deal by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said that the drones would help Taiwan by “providing timely intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; target acquisition; and counter-land, counter-sea and anti-submarine strike capabilities for its security and defense.”
Based on a notice sent from the department to the US Congress, the drones are to be equipped with a maritime monitoring and positioning system, leading to speculation that Taipei purchased the SeaGuardian variation of the drone, Cato Institute senior fellow Eric Gomez said on Wednesday.
Regardless of which type, the MQ-9B drone can fly for long periods of time at high altitudes, he said.
This makes it ideal for continuous surveillance during peacetime, helping to reduce Taiwan’s reliance on fighter jets for the task, he said.
However, it can easily be spotted and shot down at high altitudes, making it a less useful asset in a high-intensity conflict, Gomez added.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
RSS