The U.S. will make a decision on the sale of F-16 jet fighters to Taiwan by October, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said in a news conference at the Foreign Press Center in Washington July 25.
“It’s a decision that I have confidence … will be made by Oct. 1,” Mullen said. “There are legal responsibilities in my country to support the Taiwan Relations Act. And then the specifics of how that gets done, obviously, is done over time, and certainly previous arms sales are representative of that.”
Mullen added that the decision on arms sales to Taiwan is for U.S. President Barack Obama to make and announce, so even if he knew what Obama was going to do, he would not preview it.
In response to the recent incident in which a mainland Chinese fighter chased a U.S. Air Force U-2 in the Taiwan Strait, Mullen stressed that “reconnaissance flights are important.”
“The Chinese don’t like our routine reconnaissance flights in international airspace, and we don’t like any attempt to inhibit freedom of navigation and access to the global commons to include international waters and air space,” he pointed out.
“The intent of where we are with respect to [the issue of reconnaissance operations] is that this is international airspace,” Mullen said. “We won’t be deterred from flying in international airspace.”
The incident, uncovered by Taiwanese newspaper the United Daily News, involved a mainland Chinese Su-27 fighter crossing the Taiwan Strait median line in an attempt to drive off a U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane on a monitoring mission in the region June 29. The Chinese plane turned back only after Taiwan dispatched two F-16 fighters.
The Taiwan Strait median is a virtual line drawn by the U.S. military in 1955 to define the degree of threat from communist jet fighters. (THN)
Write to Grace Kuo at morningk@mail.gio.gov.tw