Michael Chase, who writes cogently on Taiwan defense issues, has a new piece out in the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief on Taiwan’s Defense Budget: how much is enough in the new era of cross-strait lovefesting? Ok, so he didn’t title it that way…an excerpt:
Taiwan’s ambitious force modernization goals include procurement of P-3C maritime patrol aircraft, [...]
Over the last three years, as I’ve followed the news on Taiwan, one of the hottest issues has been the special budget for the purchase of submarines, P-3C antisubmarine aircraft, and Patriot missiles (good background piece). Despite the fact that Taiwan has consistently been among the world’s top purchasers of arms under the outgoing Lee [...]
Some interesting news out of Washington, as 14 Senators sent a letter to the President on the 30 of June asking him why the heck the Administration has decided to stop selling weapons to Taiwan. The letter says that Taiwan is an important customer for US weapons, and notes that it is in US interests [...]
Some of you sent me the testimony of Jim Shinn in front of the Armed Services Committee….
MR. SHINN: You’ll pardon me if I consult my notes very carefully, since anything regarding Taiwan, it gets parsed very carefully, not just here but abroad.
It is true that for a couple years Taiwanese defense expenditures actually decreased in [...]
The Navy finished the Kitty Hawk affair in fine style, sending the carrier through the Taiwan Strait on the way home.
A U.S. aircraft carrier group sailed through the tense waters between China and Taiwan after it was denied entry last week to a Hong Kong port, the U.S. Navy said on Thursday.
The USS Kitty Hawk [...]
Veteran Taipei-based reporter Wendell Minnick reports on the KMT’s defense policy, as they have announced it on paper.
The paper, “A New Military for a Secure and Peaceful Taiwan,” assures readers that the KMT will pursue cross-strait peace, maintain the status quo and resume cross-strait dialogue in order to avoid miscalcula¬tion and accidents. Such language would [...]
In his delightfully cutting book The Ugly Chinaman, critic and satirist Bo Yang acidly describes the Chinese person as a fellow who, after selling his body to the butcher, is still haggling over the price as the knife is coming down on his neck. But Bo Yang’s Chinese had nothing on today’s Taiwanese companies. From [...]
Two Establishment views of the relations between the powers in East Asia popped up in the Japanese press this week. One, offered by Harvard PhD student Lief-Eric Eisley, has a series of recommendations for Taiwan, which is of course at fault in harming US-Taiwan relations (in a US establishment commentary, that goes without saying). Eisley [...]
David Isenberg writes on the visit of Taiwan legislators to the US to scout the submarine purchase:
The latest wrinkle in the long-running tale of US arms sales to Taiwan occurred last week when seven Taiwanese lawmakers from four different parties arrived in the United States on an 11-day visit to conduct a feasibility study for [...]
Several world media outlets are reporting that Taiwan is sending representatives next month to the US to purchase Aegis destroyers….
Taiwan wants to buy at least six Aegis-equipped destroyers from the United States at a cost of more than $4.6 billion, a newspaper said on Monday, a plan sure to anger China which claims the island [...]
Jane Rickards, formerly of the pro-KMT China post and currently of the American Chamber of Commerce here in Taiwan, has an article in the Washington Post today on the legislature’s passage of a tiny portion of the contentious arms purchase:
The negotiated decision, which passed on a vote of 176 to 20, called for Taiwan to [...]
Veteran military correspondent Wendell Minnick chronicles accusations that the US has a double standard on the Taiwan weapons purchase:
Young also criticized Taiwan’s recent announcement that it is developing a land-attack cruise missile (LACM) capable of hitting China.”The United States feels that the focus should be on defensive, and not offensive, weapons. … In fact, we [...]
Speaking of defense, here is Taiwan’s official response to Ted Galen Carpenter’s appalling outburst of rhetoric last week on the arms purchase. This is as it appeared, edited, in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week:
+++++++++++
Three Myths About Taiwan’s Defense
In regard to Ted Galen Carpenter’s oped (“Taiwan’s Free Ride on U.S. Defense,” April 23): Mr. [...]
Yesterday AIT head Steve Young joined the ongoing parade of US officials criticizing the island for not buying US weapons….
The Legislative Yuan has been using a “series of domestic excuses” to explain away its inability to pass the arms procurement bill, a senior U.S. official in Taiwan said yesterday, stressing that both the opposition [...]
Taiwan’s parliament was informed again that it should purchase weapons…..
A European parliamentarian urged Taiwan yesterday to bolster its defense capabilities while acknowledging that the EU would not intervene militarily should China attempt to take Taiwan by force because it would be outside Europe’s regional security responsibility.
Dr. Georg Jarzembowski, the head of the Taiwan Friendship [...]
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