Taiwan Talks

Senior Pentagon and Taiwanese defense ministry officials will gather next week during a two-day conference sponsored by the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council in Cambridge, MD.

Wallace “Chip” Gregson, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, will deliver the keynote address on Monday night, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros told InsideDefense.com. Andrew Yang, deputy defense minister for policy, will lead a five-person delegation from Taipei, according to a Taiwanese military official.

Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, says the U.S. government, Taiwan's government and the defense industry have effectively worked through all of the major weapon systems proposed for sale to Taiwan by the Bush administration in April 2001, including P-3 Orion aircraft and Kidd-class destroyers. Taiwan has not acted on a proposal for acquiring conventional submarines.

“Now the big question is, what's next?” said Hammond-Chambers.

Many believe the next big question is modernizing Taiwan's air defenses.

In February, the Defense Intelligence Agency provided Congress an assessment of Taiwan's air defense capabilities noting that the self-governing island, which Beijing regards as a break-away province, “recognizes that it needs a sustainable replacement for obsolete and problematic aircraft platforms.”

The report note that “in addition to pursuing a replacement airframe, Taiwan is also examining an upgrade to its F-16A/B aircraft and its IDF [F-CK-1A/B, Indigenous Defense Fighter] aircraft.”