U.S arms sales to Taiwan necessary: ex-AIT director
ROC Central News Agency
2015/11/27 21:50:10
Taipei, Nov. 27 (CNA) The United States has never said that it will stop selling weapons to Taiwan, William Stanton, former director of the Taipei Office of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), said Friday, adding that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are necessary.
He also noted the U.S.'s Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), saying that he felt U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are necessary.
Stanton, now senior vice president for global affairs at National Tsing Hua University in the northern city of Hsinchu, was responding to reporters' questions about an article written by Bloomberg View columnist Josh Rogin that said the U.S. government is close to announcing a US$1 billion arms deal with Taiwan.
'Washington will likely offer Taipei transfers of missile frigates, about a dozen AAV-7 amphibious assault vehicles, one replacement AH-64 Apache helicopter and munitions including Stinger, Javelin and TOW missiles,' Rogin wrote in his Nov. 25 column, citing unnamed U.S. officials.
The arms package, the first to Taiwan in more than four years, is likely to be announced formally in the second half of December, following a climate change conference in Paris, Rogin cited the officials as saying.
Asked if such U.S. arms sales will anger China, Stanton said that the U.S. has been consistent in that it should provide Taiwan with necessary weapons.
Stanton, who chose to stay in Taiwan after he stepped down as AIT director and retired from the U.S. foreign service in 2012, said that he does not represent the U.S. government anymore, but added that the U.S. stance remains unchanged.
He made the remarks after attending a seminar hosted by the Taipei-based think tank Taiwan Brain Trust.
Asked about the issue a day earlier, Ministry of National Defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Luo Shou-he (羅紹和) said that the ministry has not received any related information from the U.S. about the arms sales and therefore would not comment.
Eleanor Wang (王珮玲), spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Thursday that her ministry will not comment on U.S. arms sales before the U.S. administration has notified the U.S. Congress.
The Foreign Ministry welcomes the U.S. administration's continued efforts to provide Taiwan with adequate defensive weaponry and related services and to enhance bilateral military cooperation and exchanges, based on the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances, she said.
The TRA was enacted in 1979 to maintain commercial, cultural and other unofficial relations between the U.S. and Taiwan after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The act also requires the U.S. 'to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character.'
The six assurances given under the Reagan administration refer to assurances of not agreeing to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, not to hold prior consultations with China on arms sales to Taiwan, not to play any mediation role between Taipei and Beijing, not to revise the TRA, not to alter the U.S. position regarding Taiwan's sovereignty and not to exert pressure on Taiwan to enter into negotiations with China.
(By Sophia Yeh and Elaine Hou)
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