J Michael Cole in The Diplomat

Panorama of Taitung and its basin from Rte 197.

Over at The Diplomat in its flashpoints blog, the intrepid J Michael Cole of the Taipei Times has a piece on how the F-35 can be used to ensure that the F-16s never arrive....

Whether the international consortium, led by Lockheed Martin Corp, will eventually succeed in making the troubled [F-35] work is an intellectual exercise that has already been carried out elsewhere. What is already known, however, is that the aircraft has become prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, and more relevant in the present case, the F-35 involves systems and attributes that could make the U.S. extremely reluctant to sell the aircraft to Taiwan, for fear that the advanced technology would be transferred to China. Despite improving relations in the Taiwan Strait in recent years, China continues to aggressively target the Taiwanese military and would undoubtedly make a platform such as the F-35B a primary target of such activity.

Meanwhile, other options, such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale, remain off the table, as the EU doesn’t want to risk Beijing’s wrath by selling arms to Taiwan.

The F-35 could therefore become a convenient tool to kill the F-16C/D program while maintaining the politically useful illusion that Taipei remains committed to national defense. While there’s no doubt that requests for the advanced aircraft are heartfelt within the military, there’s reason to doubt that the same applies to Taiwan’s National Security Council and the Presidential Office.

What he means is that pursuit of the F-16 can now be quietly abandoned with the announcement that the F-35 is now the target. Since the F-35 will never be sold to Taiwan, as J Michael notes, pursuit of the F-35 is tantamount to a decision not to buy new fighters at all. While the KMT and President Ma have made lots of right-sounding noises, it seems pretty clear, at least to this observer, that they do not want Taiwan to have any new fighters, given that they killed discussion of the bill to purchase the fighters over 60 times in the legislature, including when Ma was Chairman of the KMT.....
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