Taiwan holds out little hope of immediate F-16 acquisition

[Mig-29]

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence (MND) has accepted that Washington is unlikely to release the 66 F-16C/D Block 50/52 fighters that the island has been trying to procure any time this year.

However, the passing of a bill in the United States calling for a presidential report on the status of Taiwan's air force has offered encouragement that the F-16 sale could still go ahead.

Washington's immediate need to reach trade and economic agreements with China and to secure Beijing's support on curtailing North Korean and Iranian nuclear programmes means that the aircraft deal, first requested by Taiwan in 2006, will remain on hold for the time being, MND officials said in mid-August.

The statement comes a week after the release of a report by the Rand Corporation, which stated that, due to the increasing "sophistication and accuracy" of China's short-range ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan, Beijing could cripple the island's air force by launching just 240 of the estimated 1,000 missiles it has deployed near the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing continues to oppose the sale of weapon systems to the island by Washington. There are also fears within some US defence circles that US weaponry sold to Taiwan could be transferred to China, as the Taiwan government continues to edge closer to Beijing.


Taiwan holds out little hope of immediate F-16 acquisition

 

[Mig-29]

A major arms package, but no AEGIS, for Taiwan

By Peter Felstead, janes.com Web Editor

China was today lodging official protests over the US announcement yesterday of a major arms deal for Taiwan: a move that signals a continued US preparedness to support the island state that Beijing has always considered a renegade province.

A sizeable package
The arms package announced for Taiwan yesterday may be even larger than the biggest previous US sale to the island: the 1992 supply of 150 F-16 fighters worth US$6 billion. Its major components are as follows:
# Four Kidd-class destroyers (currently mothballed). Further details of the Kidd-class destroyer are available here.
# Eight diesel-electric patrol submarines
# 12 P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft
# Paladin self-propelled howitzers
# MH-53E minesweeping helicopters
# AAV7A1 amphibious assault vehicles
# Avenger surface-to-air missiles
# Submarine- and surface-launched torpedoes

The defence package agreed for Taiwan was influenced largely by the build-up of missiles facing Taipei from the Chinese mainland, although the recent strain in Sino-US relations over the collision between a US EP-3 surveillance aircraft and a Chinese J-8 interceptor will not have put the US government in a conciliatory mood. China critics in the US Congress were dismayed by President Bush stopping short of selling Taiwan warships equipped with the AEGIS integrated combat system, but they were somewhat mollified by the decision to go ahead with the supply of submarines. These would provide a potent blockade-breaking capability and serve as a deterrent to any invasion of Taiwan by the People's Liberation Army.

Submarines from where?
How these submarines will be supplied is another matter, since the USA no longer has an indigenous capability to build diesel-electric patrol submarines. One obvious potential source of supply would have been the link-up between US companies Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding and Lockheed Martin and Dutch boatbuilders RDM, a joint venture formed to offer Moray class submarines to Egypt.

RDM, however, has been blocked in the past from selling submarines direct to Taiwan by the Dutch government - despite the Dutch having supplied Taiwan's two Hai Lung-class patrol submarines in 1987/88. Yesterday a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman told the Bloomberg News Service that current Dutch policy meant that "no weapons are to be sold to Taiwan or to third parties for resale to Taiwan".

Germany would be a possible alternative source, but Berlin, too, has shied away from selling submarines to Taiwan for fear of incensing the Chinese. A spokesman for German Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder told Bloomberg yesterday: "We wouldn't permit the sale."

France, which also builds diesel-electric submarines, has in the past supplied Taiwan with six Kang Ding (La Fayette) class frigates, Mirage 2000 fighters and other weapons - but at the cost of much deteriorated relations with Beijing.

What's so special about AEGIS?

The Americans have stated that the sale of AEGIS-equipped warships has been deferred, implying that a subsequent sale could be made if Chinese belligerence continues, but the system - while very capable - is not the 'silver shield' that many press reports have assumed. The AEGIS integrated combat system, with the AN/SPY-1 phased-array radar at its heart, can track and perform missile guidance onto as many as 100 air, surface and subsurface targets simultaneously. Its basic design dates back to the 1960s, however, and it cannot defend Taipei from the M-9 and M-11 ballistic missiles threatening it from across the Taiwan Strait. Further details of the AEGIS integrated combat system are available here.

While Chinese officials have indicated to Jane's that they are not diametrically opposed to the concept of theatre defence per se - and can certainly see Japan's desire for protection against North Korean missiles, for example - they nevertheless have intimated that deployment of any such system encompassing Taiwan would be tantamount to an act of war.

A major arms package, but no AEGIS, for Taiwan - Jane's Defence News