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Reports: Taiwan wants fewer new F-16s from US
Taiwan is asking the United States for fewer new F-16 fighters due to budget concerns, according to media reports.
Taiwan is cutting its previous request to Washington for 66 F-16C/D fighters to just 24 of the advanced F-16 planes, according to Agence France-Presse, citing media reports in two Taiwanese newspapers on Monday.
The Taiwanese defense ministry dismissed the reports in the Taipei-based China Times, which quoted an “authoritative military source,” and The Liberty Times, according to AFP.
The Obama administration last year agreed to a $5.9 billion deal to retrofit Taiwan’s current fleet of 145 F-16A/B planes, rather than selling Taiwan new F-16C/Ds, which are more advanced than the F-16A/Bs Taiwan currently operates.
Congress has been critical of the Obama administration’s unwillingness to sell Taiwan the new planes, however, and the House included the 66 F-16 fighters in its 2013 defense authorization bill that passed in May.
In April, the Obama administration said it was considering a change in policy toward selling the F-16C/Ds to Taiwan, leading Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to release a hold on a Pentagon nomination that he’d placed due to the F-16s.
Administration officials also acknowledged in a report that Taiwan’s fleet is inadequate to counter China in the Taiwan Strait.
The Taiwanese papers said the reduced F-16 request was due to budgetary constraints, but the Liberty Times also quoted a source suggesting that the reduction could also have been made so Taiwan could later purchase F-35 fighters instead.
