But Taipei Accusing US of Not Giving Full Financial Picture
By WENDELL MINNICK and AARON MEHTA
TAIPEI AND WASHINGTON — The same week that the US Air Force said it had figured out a way to get its counterparts in Taiwan new radars for its 146 F-16 fighter jets, sources at Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) are accusing US officials of lying to them and avoiding questions on the impact that the cancellation of the upgrades on the US side will have on Taiwan.
This month, after the US zeroed out the budget for the Combat Avionics Programmed Extension Suite (CAPES) upgrade for 300 of its own F-16s, analysts predicted that Taiwan would have to abandon the program without the US helping to shoulder some of the cost. That included installation of Northrop Grumman’s scalable agile-beam radar.
However, the US Air Force said last week that it had found a way to make sure Taiwan still gets the needed upgrades.
The fix, according to US Air Force spokesman Ed Gulick, was found largely because the agreement with Taiwan was a foreign military sales deal, where the US acted as the procurement authority. Purchasers at the Air Force issued a number of contracts for the CAPES upgrade to Taiwan, and a significant number of those came back under budget. Because of those savings, the service was able to turn around and invest that money into paying for the radar upgrades.
However, that doesn’t mean the cost for the program won’t change.
Read the full story at DefenceNews