Washington Times: US to deny F-16s

The article speaks for itself:

Inside the Ring

By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
September 1, 2006

Punishing Taiwan
Pentagon officials tell us President Bush has been advised to deny new sales of F-16 jets to Taiwan.

The advice is said to have originated from White House National Security Council (NSC) staff, who convinced the president not to approve new F-16 sales to Taiwan to avoid upsetting China. It would also signal disapproval with Taipei for its failure to procure submarines, surveillance aircraft and missile defenses offered for sale since 2001.

The official response we received from NSC spokesman Frederick Jones is that: "We have not to date received a request from the Taiwan Government for F-16s. If we do, it will be considered in keeping with our Taiwan Relations Act commitments."

Other officials tell us what really happened is that Taiwan's chief representative to the United States, David Tawei Lee, was told privately that now is not the time to submit a request for F-16s, to avoid the negative publicity of turning it down. Mr. Lee is close to the acting NSC Asia director, Dennis Wilder.

News of the rejection will be greeted with toasts in Beijing as a great propaganda victory, and another example of how China uses its influence over U.S. academics, policy-makers and intelligence officials to skew U.S. policy. Chinese military officials recently pressed the Bush administration and the Pentagon to halt all arms sales to rival Taiwan.

Taiwan's government confirmed earlier this week that it plans to buy up to 66 new F-16C/D models to replace F-5s. The deal was estimated to be worth $3.1 billion.

Press reports from Taiwan also stated that the Bush administration has rejected a request from Taipei to allow Taiwanese leader Chen Shui-bian to make a transit stop on the U.S. territory of Guam during an upcoming South Pacific visit.

The snub on Guam follows a visit to the island by several Chinese military officials who were given a tour of Guam, a major hub for the U.S. military buildup in Asia, during a recent military exercise.

The short-sightedness of this response to an F-16 procurement request is everywhere evident. If the Bush Administration is serious about checking China, and Taiwan is an important link in that containment chain, then Taiwan. must. have. fighters. Either the US will have to sell them now, or it will have to come up with fighters in a hurry to oppose China when it finally moves on Taiwan -- a possibility that becomes ever more real each time the US fails to aid Taiwan. Control of the air is imperative in either taking or holding Taiwan, and 60 modern fighters would go a long way toward insuring that the good guys control the air, and reducing the US need to intervene, and the size of the commitment when it actually does.

Further, by stifling the sale, the US also rewards the KMT and its allies, the pan-Blue coalition, in two important ways. First, it rewards the Blues for blocking the arms package. And second, it shows that their strategy of blocking the arms package to create trouble between the US and its natural ally, the DPP, is effective. If the US wants to discourage further Blue obstructionism and get the arms purchase package passed, rewarding such obstructionism is hardly the right strategy. Additionally, with Japan moving closer to Taiwan, the Bush Administration is also ignoring Japanese interests (somebody in Taipei ought to consider enlisting Tokyo to plead their case in Washington). This decision serves no long-term US interest -- not the US economy, not democracy, not regional stability, not its alliances, and not its commitment to the people of Taiwan.

If this is truly the Administration response, it is immature, shortsighted, and self-defeating. I hope that either the report is wrong, or the Administration changes its mind. Time for Taiwan to put that Congressional Caucus to work by pointing out just how many jobs will be generated by a $3.1 billion fighter sale...

[Taiwan] [US] [China] [DPP] [F-16] [KMT] [Taiwan Relations Act (TRA)] [US Foreign Policy]