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US Said to Put Off Planned F-16 Sale to Taiwan









(Source: compiled by defense-aerospace.com; posted Sept. 17, 2007)







PARIS --- The U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, a US business lobby group, has accused the Bush administration of jeopardizing Taiwan ’s security by indefinitely putting off the pending sale of 66 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D fighters. The sale is valued at $4.9 billion.

The group says that the US is delaying the sale, which was due to pass a contractual milestone next month, to show its displeasure with the policies of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian.

On June 15, Taiwan 's parliament passed the 2007 defense budget which includes initial funds for the deal. However, these funds will lapse unless Taiwan obtains formal notice of the aircraft’s price and availability by Oct. 31, Chen told reporters during a video news conference on Friday.

In a move clearly intended to delay the sale, the US has told Taiwan to delay seeking price and availability data on the F-16s until further notice, the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council said, presumably until Chen leaves office after the next presidential election in March 2008. (ends)







America’s Relationship with Taiwan Slips Further Into Malaise (excerpt)






(Source: U.S.-Taiwan Business Council; dated Sept. 13, 2007)






(Edited for relevance)







This past June, Taiwan passed a long-delayed defense budget that included funds for procuring additional F-16s, contingent upon the U.S. providing purchasing data by October 31, 2007.

Although this would seem a straightforward deal, since F-16s are a part of Taiwan’s existing arsenal and do not constitute a new capability, the U.S. has informed Taiwan that it should not submit a Letter of Request - the critical first step in the arms sale process - until further notice, thereby leaving this pressing matter in limbo. This is an unprecedented action in any bilateral U.S. security relationship.

A short-term need to censure Taiwan , or more specifically its president, should never impact America ’s long-term commitment to maintaining the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait . China ’s massive force modernization and transformation is possibly the most disruptive dynamic in the status quo at this time.

Taiwan presidents will come and go, but the U.S. will continue to need a strong and stable underlying relationship with Taiwan , a relationship founded on a number of essential and consistent commitments. If [Taiwanese President] Chen’s statements and actions regarding UN membership are viewed as destabilizing, how does delaying consideration of the F-16s, itself a destabilizing act, constitute an appropriate response? It’s tantamount to cutting off our nose to spite our face.

The Bush Administration’s decision to focus its criticism on President Chen and to personalize their criticism is surely an attempt to balance displeasure - over the UN application issue and the accompanying referendum - with the need to continue the relationship with Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). That relationship will be crucial in the event that the DPP candidate Frank Hsieh wins the presidential elections next March.

However, there is no guarantee that a President Hsieh - or indeed a President Ma Ying-jeou, the opposition KMT’s candidate - will represent a better custodian of “the status quo as America wants to see it”.

Without a commitment to a number of basic principles – such as maintaining the balance of power by fulfilling American defense commitments to Taiwan, improved high-level dialogue between America and Taiwan, and improved communications between Taiwan and China – the triangular relationship between China, Taiwan and America will continue to deteriorate well past the end of Chen Shui-bian’s presidency.

-ends-

xinhui

Taiwan's Kinmen Veers Toward China 29 Years After Cease-Fire

By Yu-huay Sun
More Photos/Details

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Artillery shells from China have defined Wu Tseng-dong's life. He ducked them for 20 years and earned a living making knives from their casings. Now he looks forward to meeting the enemy who launched them.

``Times have changed,'' says Wu, 50, who lives on Kinmen, the island once known as Quemoy that was Taiwan's military front line against China for almost six decades. ``China was communist before but now they're capitalist.''

Starved of the Taiwanese soldiers and visiting relatives who once kept Kinmen's economy humming, the islanders are turning to their closest neighbor for future prosperity. Two-thirds of the 70,000 residents support buying electricity from China -- just 10 kilometers (6 miles) away -- and forming a special economic zone to forge closer ties, a survey by the county government shows.

Such views are anathema for Taiwan's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party government, which faces a presidential election in March.

``We should return to the motherland so we can have more business,'' says Hsu Chi-sung, 48, a former artilleryman and Kinmen native, who now shows Chinese and Taiwanese tour groups -- separately -- around the island.

``Don't forget, vote for Ma,'' he tells a Taiwanese tourist, referring to Ma Ying-jeou, the opposition Kuomintang candidate, after visiting an underground pier housing naval boats.

The Kuomintang fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's communists. China's shelling of Kinmen led to threats of nuclear retaliation by the U.S. in the 1950s.

China still claims Taiwan as part of its territory. While the Kuomintang favors a negotiated peace, the Democratic Progressive Party pursues a separate identity for Taiwan and emphasizes China's military threat.

Cease-Fire

Kinmen residents aren't buying the warnings. After bombarding the island every second day for 20 years, China declared a cease-fire in 1978. The military gave way to civilian rule on Kinmen 15 years ago.

These days Wu, who forges each shell casing into as many as 80 knives, relies on stocks hoarded over the years.

Power shortages are now a bigger threat than artillery. Kinmen risks running short of electricity in two years as the local liquor-maker expands, says Tu King-chun, director for state-run Taiwan Power Co. on the island. A 10-kilometer cable to China would ease supply concerns, Tu says.

``Technically there's no problem,'' he says, adding that political differences must be solved first.

`Recover the Motherland'

Visitors don't lack reminders Taiwan and China remain at war. Watchtowers stand in some intersections and anti-paratrooper columns dot farmland. Signs saying: ``Don't forget we have an obligation to recover the motherland'' adorn some buildings.

Since 2001, China and Taiwan have permitted direct shipping for trade and tourism between Kinmen and China's Fujian province. Tourists may exchange Chinese yuan on the island.

Still, Taiwan restricts the number of Chinese visitors to 600 a day and only Fujianese may apply.

China enforces its own curbs. Duan Xianqing, a former soldier from Jinjiang, says approval of his visa took two months.

``The investigations went back to eight generations of my ancestors,'' Duan says on his first trip outside mainland China. ``The people on this tour all have clean records politically and are excellent professionally.''

As a soldier, Duan spent time watching Kinmen through binoculars.

``Now I'm seeing it in person,'' he says. ``I toured big streets and small alleys and was quite impressed.''

Hurt Feelings

On Duan's itinerary: a radio station that broadcast propaganda and the wreckage of a communist command center during the 1949 battle that halted their advance to Taiwan island. Museums that celebrate Kuomintang victories were omitted.

``We don't take mainland tourists there because it hurts their feelings,'' says tour guide Hsu, who bought a house in Xiamen, the nearest Chinese city, with his profits.

At the peak of hostilities, Taiwan stationed 120,000 soldiers on the 150 square-kilometer island, says Lee Juh-feng, the county commissioner. That number has dropped to about 6,000, according to Taiwan's Defense Ministry.

Five years ago, relatives visiting soldiers were the main source of income for Chang I-wen, who owns a 30-room hotel in downtown Kinmen. Now she is betting on Chinese tourists, who account for a third of customers.

``If all mainland Chinese are allowed to come, then we'll be full,'' says Chang, 56. ``We won't need tourists from Taiwan.''

Service industries accounted for 54 percent of Kinmen's economy in 2005, compared with 64 percent in 1996, county figures show.

`Gifts From Mao'

The Democratic Progressive Party needs every vote it can get. Its presidential candidate, Frank Hsieh, trails the Kuomintang's Ma by 24 percentage points, according to a Sept. 22 survey of 723 adults by the United Daily News newspaper.

Chinese electricity and an economic zone aren't the only items on islanders' wish list. More than 80 percent want a bridge to Xiamen, the county survey of 1,158 residents found in April. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.

Third-generation knife-maker Wu is honing his tourist patter. Taiwanese soldiers wanting souvenirs used to bring him old Chinese ordnance, he says. Now he tells mainlanders: ``Bomb shells were gifts from Mao Zedong.''

To contact the reporter on the story: Yu-huay Sun in Taipei ysun7@bloomberg.net .

xinhui

Kinmen to clear mines to boost tourism
Radio Taiwan International


Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense has set 2013 as the target year in which all land mines on the outlying island of Kinmen are to be cleared. A ministry spokesman made the announcement on Thursday.

The landmines were first planted in the 1950s. They crowd the beaches of Kinmen -- an island just three kilometers from the Chinese coast -- to deter an invasion from China. But the ministry spokesman said changing circumstances have rendered the mine fields useless.

Now, the Taiwanese ministry has begun clearing the mines to turn the former forbidden zones into a tourist resort. It is expected that the military will clear the estimated 70,000 mines concentrated in over 150 fields around the island's perimeter.

Officer of Engineers

Tourists ... I rather face the landmines.

__________________
Chimo

akinkhoo

Why do some think India should oppose China? i think it wouldn't be in India's advantage for a confrontation.

why?