Taiwan planning upgrades to jet fighters

AP via Breitbart ^ | October 23, 2009 | N/A

[Jet Jaguar]

Taiwan's air force said Friday it was planning to upgrade the island's U.S.-made and indigenous fighter jets to maintain the balance of air power across the Taiwan Strait.

The upgrades are aimed at boosting the fighters' performance and avoid a "gap in Taiwan's war-fighting capabilities," the island's semi- official Central News Agency reported Friday.

The upgrades would seek to address "the trend of the tipping of the military balance in the Taiwan Strait," the air force reportedly said, without elaborating.

On Thursday Defense Minister Kao Hua-chu told lawmakers that the military was considering mothballing the some 60 French-made Mirage models that Taiwan bought from France from 1997-1998. Factors including Chinese pressure on France and Paris' decision to halt the production of the Mirage in 2007 have contributed to a chronic lack of spare parts and logistical support for Taiwan's fleet, according to local media.

Besides Taiwan's struggle to maintain its Mirages, the island is struggling to replace its other aging fighters as the United States, Taipei's security benefactor, increasingly shies away from providing big-ticket weapons systems.

Since 2007, Taipei has appealed to Washington to kick-start the procurement process for 66 more advanced F-16 fighter jets, but Washington has been reluctant to sell them for fear of irking Beijing, which claims the self-ruled island as its own.

SNIP In the meantime, China's military has grown exponentially, with "the balance of military power in the Taiwan Strait now clearly tipped in China's favor," a recent Taiwan Defense Ministry report states.

At a conference in Taipei last week, Michael Green, former senior director for Asian affairs at the White House's National Security Council, said Washington's dithering on the F-16 jets throws into doubt its security commitments to Taipei.

[Jet Jaguar]

F-16 Ping.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

I guess the supporters of Free Trade with Communist China crowd will not be happy with this development....can’t believe the ChiComs and their supporters here in the US are thrilled with this development

[Leisler]

Just our elites selling us out like the Chinese elites sell out their people.

This is what new world order means. A transnational coalition of elites each trading their own people off, like poker chips, to the benefit of the elites themselves. Then off to Gstad for skiing.

[Joe Boucher]

10 to 1 the chi-coms see this marxist punk for what he is and invade and take back Taiwan and this poser punk sits back and does nothing.

[darkside321]

10 to 1 the chi-coms see this marxist punk for what he is and invade and take back Taiwan and this poser punk sits back and does nothing.

---

while i do think there is not much the US could do anyway (even if they would want to) to stop china if they would deside to invade taiwan. i still think that it´s highly unlikely that china would be willing to fight a bloody war over taiwan. (while it´s true that taiwan never can match the chinese anyway in a war they still could do some real damage to china). i just don´t see the great benefit for china if they would conquer Taiwan by force (there for i think they won´t do it and not because i think they are all peace loving tree huggers :-) they are having a hard time keeping their own huge population under controll right now so why add 20 million more people (who will feel nothing but hate for you because of this) by force to this allready incredible big population? i guess this simple would bring them more problems than it would benefit them in the long way. btw. i don´t think the economically gain of adding taiwan to their country could somehow even match the loss of existing international trade relations, further isolation.... so i guess for china it´s just a simple cost-benefit calculation and as long the benefit does not match the costs taiwan has nothing to fear.

[Tainan]

Further, more in-depth, coverage of this meeting and events:

U.S.-Taiwan Meeting Ends on F-16 Question

The dithering about purchasing F-16C/D models has been the result of political gamesmanship on Taiwans' side. The window of opportunity has been opened several times and Taiwan has done so much inter-party political squabbling that Washington has washed its hands of getting a clear answer, This has occurred several times.
Taiwan is basically to the point that they have to do something about their a/c fleets.
And then there is the question of electronic packages...another can o'worms to be opened. Security issues are at the forefront on this item.

[Fee]

China will invade Taiwan if and only if Taiwan formally declares independence. Short of that, China and Taiwan will use diplomacy and economics the parry each others attempts to dominate or breakaway. At the rate things are going Taiwan may need to study the Boer War. The Brits had a hard time fighting the Boers, but in the end was turning the tide. Before absolute defeat manifested itself the Boer leadership submitted to British rule, but because they negotiated the surrender when they still had the ability to inflict heavy casualties on the British, they were able to retain most of their autonomy that for all practical purposes the Boer were an independent nation flying a British flag. If Taiwan does not have the means to support and arms race with mainland China, and the world (due to trade interests) will not sell arms to Taiwan, Taiwan may have to consider the Boer model of resolving its conflict with mainland China. Right now Taiwan has time to decide what to do, but that window of wide options is closing.

[FreeAtlanta]

Give them some nuclear tipped cruise missiles and then stop worrying about them. If anything would prevent the reds from attacking, it would be the threat of serious retaliation.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Besides Taiwan's struggle to maintain its Mirages, the island is struggling to replace its other aging fighters as the United States, Taipei's security benefactor, increasingly shies away from providing big-ticket weapons systems.

Another foreign policy blunder from the great pretender.