Taiwanese soldiers work with US-made 40MM machine guns. Taiwan's plan for a huge US arms purchase may finally win parliamentary approval after the military agreed to trim its cost by more than four billion dollars, officials said(AFP/File)
Posted on 08/24/2005 5:56:41 PM PDT by Righty_McRight
TAIPEI (AFP) - Taiwan's plan for a huge US arms purchase may finally win parliamentary approval after the military agreed to trim its cost by more than four billion dollars, officials said.
The cabinet withdrew from parliament a bill calling for the purchase of 480 billion Taiwan dollars (15 billion US) worth of weaponry from the United States over a 15-year period, in what was seen as a concession to the opposition.
The defense ministry said it would submit a new version of the bill to cabinet next week before it goes to parliament.
Eight conventional submarines and a fleet of submarine-hunting P-3C aircraft would remain intact under the new bill, estimated at around 340 Taiwan dollars (10.63 billion US).
The six PAC-3 Patriot anti-missile systems included in the original bill would be financed by the government's yearly budgets.
In a positive response parliament speaker Wang Jin-pyng from the leading opposition Kuomintang party said that "now the arms bill should be discussed by the Legislative Yuan."
Defense ministry spokesman Liou Chih-jein was optimistic about the outlook for the new bill. "A new light has shed on the arms package," he told AFP.
President Chen Shui-bian from the Democratic Progressive Party renewed his appeal to the opposition Tuesday, insisting the island badly needs more weaponry to defend itself.
He accused the opposition of acting "irresponsibly" in blocking the arms package in the face of a growing military threat from China.
China has deployed up to 730 ballistic missiles opposite the island which it regards as part of its territory, the Pentagon said in a report last month.
In December the legislature's procedure committee killed the original bill, which was priced at 610.8 billion Taiwan dollars (19.33 billion US) when it was first introduced in June last year.
The committee again blocked the amended bill of 480 billion earlier this year.
Some opposition lawmakers said Taiwan could not afford the arms deals while others said the equipment would be delivered too slowly to enable Taiwan to catch up with China's military build-up.
Relations between China and Taiwan, which split in 1949 at the end of a civil war, have worsened since independence-leaning Chen was elected president in 2000. He was re-elected last year.
China has vowed to attack Taiwan should the island declare formal independence.
I would rather see us in the US invest in developing and building the technology to produce the modern AIP subs ourselves personally.
Actually, Taiwan probably has the capability of building the subs themselves, if they can get their hands on the blueprint and get some engineering assistance.
Many nation *could*, but so far none *would*. N
No one, except for the USA, can CYA the fallout of their Chinese commerical interest if they sold subs to TW. The USA will have to work out some deal to shield the country supplying the subs (as, alas, the US no longer design / build conventional SSK) from that country's fallout with China - not easy to do.
The Dutch said no more after they sold two back in 87.
The Germans have repeately said absolutely no way on any form of sell of 209/214 (supposedly TW's first choice if they had a choice) to TW.
French, who amy well sell anything to anyone (after all, the French was selling Mirage 2000-5 fighters and Lafyette frigates to TW back when even the US wouldn't sell F-16's to TW in the late 80's and early 90's), the French *may* have been willing to make a deal on the Skorpen class SSK at one time, no says absolutely no weapon sales to TW.
Israel, rumors of a version of the Israeli Dolphin to TW went no where, probably bcos the Dolphins are built by German yards and Germany was not going to ahve anything to do with such deal. And Israel has a pretty tight arms deal relationship with China they wouldn't want to upset.
UK/Australia/Canada - rumors of some sort of transfer of ex-RN SSK's to Canada CF to USN to TW or some version of the UK/Australian Collins class also went no where, wrong type of boats for TW. And Australian came out and said no way no how also.
Japan can't really sell weapons to other nation under its peace constitution anyway.
The latest rumor out of TW is that it'll be the French Skorpen SSK build by Spanish yard. We'll ahve to see how much leg that's got.
Now let's see they can actually get it passed and put money on the table. Already the US has said no to new requests for HARM and JDM due to perception that TW is hopelessly gridlock on any arms purchase.
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