Posted on 05/06/2012 8:10:52 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Will Obama drop a viper in China's lap?
Last August I wrote in this blog that Taiwan's long-hoped-for F-16 C/D purchase could become an election issue in the USA this year. The recent letter from the Obama administration to Senator John Cornyn suggests that the administration could indeed sell Taiwan new F-16s. This would be a great way to bolster the president's tough guy foreign policy credentials and show that he cares about jobs back home. He might even sincerely care about defending Taiwan.
That said, is it really in the interests of the US to sell advanced F-16 C/Ds or, perhaps, the new F-16V to Taiwan? Such a deal would indeed rile Beijing, but they get upset at every US arms sale to Taiwan, no matter how small. Rather, the more important issue could be technology transfer to the mainland.
Exchanges between Taiwan and China have become increasingly close in recent years, with large numbers of direct flights now available. Many Taiwanese seek work on the mainland, and this is certainly the case in the aerospace sector. Inevitably, a degree of knowledge transfer occurs here.
Over drinks in Taipei last year a friend of mine went as far as to outline a nightmare scenario for the US that would make for a decent spy novel. The Chinese could cosy up to a Taiwanese pilot and offer him $10-20 million to fly his advanced variant F-16 to the mainland, where he would then live a life of luxury.
Though the US would probably realise what happened pretty quickly, as the aircraft would likely come with kill switches and secret transponders, having a late model F-16 would be of immense use to China's on the reverse engineering front.
No matter what happens, this is all great stuff for us journos.
Obama triangulates with obtuse triangles. There has to be something in this for him, or rather for the teleprompter writers.
OBozo is not going to do “thing one” AGAINST China and certainly not if it helps Taiwan.
Does he get to be a Supreme Court Judge too?
“Does he get to be a Supreme Court Judge too?”
Even better - he gets to join the Secret Service...
Gee.........
ARM an ally AGAINST the Reds??
Now why would an Obammmacommie want THAT?
Not selling F-16s to Taiwan means US loses money and China frees up more funds to deploy military assets against US then against military threats in the immidiate neighbourhood.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.