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TAIWAN TO PURCHASE 60 F-16C/D JET FIGHTERS: DEFENSE NEWS

ROC Central News Agency

2006-05-19 19:28:39

    Washington, May 18 (CNA) A military delegation from Taiwan is scheduled to visit Washington, D.C. May 25-29 to explore the possibility of procuring 60 F-16C/D fighter planes from the United States, according to a report carried in the latest issue of the Defense News weekly.

    The report said Taiwan intends to buy the advanced F-16C/D fighters to replace its aging warplane fleet. Taiwan now has 146 F-16A/B fighters, 128 indigenously developed IDF fighters, 56 Mirage 2000-5 fighters and 60 F-5 fighters.

    According to the report, the delegation will discuss details about the planned F-16C/D fighter deal with U.S. Defense Department officials.

    Quoting Pentagon sources, the report said that even if Taiwan and the United States can cut a deal this year, the delivery of the planes will not happen until after 2011 or 2012 because of the time required for paperwork and production.

    The report said the Military Spokesman's Office of Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) declined to confirm the procurement plan when asked by Defense News reporters.

    The report also quoted the F-16C/D manufacturing company Lockheed Martin as having said that the Bush administration is rather unhappy with Taiwan's failure to strike a deal so far on a package of weapons that it agreed to sell Taiwan in 2001, including eight diesel-electric submarines, six Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile batteries and a squadron of 12 P-3C submarine-hunting aircraft.

    Against this backdrop, the report said, the Pentagon might demand that Taiwan conclude the three-big-ticket-weapon procurement plan before talking about the F-16C/D fighter deal.

    The report further said the proposed F-16C/D deal might encounter opposition from Beijing and Taiwan's opposition "pan-blue alliance" of the Kuomintang and the People First Party, which controls a slim majority in the Legislative Yuan.

    The "pan-blue-alliance"-controlled legislature has stonewalled the budget bill for the three-item procurement project for two years.

    A day earlier, Lt. Gen. Cheng Shih-yu, deputy chief of the General Staff for Operations and Planning, said during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan's Defense Committee that there might be a deficiency or insufficiency in Taiwan's aerial combat capability after 2010 in the face of China's intensified military buildup against Taiwan. To cope with the situation, Cheng said a new fighter procurement plan is being worked out, but the type of plane to be purchased has yet to be determined.

    Asked whether the United States is more likely to sell Taiwan F-15 or F-18 fighters than the F-16C/D, Cheng said the possibility of the U.S. selling F-15s or F-18s to Taiwan is slim.

    Cheng also told lawmakers that the MND plans to retire all of its F-5E/Fs in 2010, with the locally developed IDF fighters taking over their function as training craft.

(By Jorge Liu and Sofia Wu)

ENDITEM/J