By Marina Malenic
The ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is urging the White House to sell a fleet of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan in a letter sent last week to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In a letter dated April 1, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) says Taiwan’s indigenous F-5 fighter fleet is “decaying” and that replacing it, as well as several hundred legacy F- 16A/Bs and Mirage fighter jets, is now an “urgent matter.”
“Given the decrepit state of Taiwan’s F-5s, the service life issues associated with [it] and a growing problem…obtaining affordable and sustainable access to spare parts for Mirages, I am very concerned that if the administration does not act favorably on Taiwan’s outstanding Letter of Request for sales of F-16C/D aircraft, Taiwan will be forced to retire all of its existing F-16A/B aircraft in the next decade, leaving it with no credible air-to-air capability,” Lugar writes.
In order for Lockheed Martin [LMT] to be able to produce and deliver new F-16s to Taiwan by 2015 as desired by the island nation, Lugar notes that an Obama administration decision is needed on the matter this year.
Further, Lugar notes in the letter that the assistant secretary of state for political military affairs, Andrew Shapiro, pledged last year to consult with Lugar’s committee on the matter.
“Such consultations have yet to occur,” writes the Senator.
“Presently, we have not received clear and consistent information from the State Department regarding this matter,” he adds, “and I believe it is time to engage in a meaningful consultation with this Committee on Taiwan.”
Meanwhile, the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, a lobbying group, expressed support for Lugar’s position.
The council “shares Senator Lugar’s expressed concerns over Taiwan’s deteriorating airpower situation, and supports his contention that replacement of Taiwan’s tactical aircraft–such as with U.S.-made F-16C/Ds–is both necessary, justified, and not provocative” of China.
Taiwan has a “legitimate requirement” to maintain a credible air deterrent in the face of a “growing military threat” from Beijing, the council says in a statement released yesterday.