The_Zergling said:
China wouldn't like ANY arms sales... although there is indeed a difference of scale for different purchases. However I think it's safe to say that nothing Taiwan does that will strengthen the military is going to make the Chinese happy.
Obviously.
Until the ROCAF gets more missles, the entire question of more planes is moot. It would only hurt the ROCAF, spending money on planes that cannot fight for lack of missles.
Personally, I think that the ROCAF should increase its SAM capability and coverage. After 60 years of threatened invasion, one would think that the ROCAF had the entire island covered in a comprehensive SAM and AAA network. It doesn't. Taiwan is about even or ahead of the PLAAF in terms of aircraft, as it has a much smaller area to defend and about the same number of modern aircraft. A comprehensive air defence system, with radars plenty of SAMs and AAA batteries would make gaining air supremacy over the island much more difficult, and it would improve the ROCAF's survival ratio because the air fields would be very well defended and flying over and around Taiwan would always entail casualties. Plus, the PLAAFs flying time over Taiwan would be even more limited because they would have to be flying much more erratically. So it would probably be a better idea for the ROCAF to build up its air defence instead of buy new planes that it doesn't have missles for.
I know that the ROC has quite a few SAMs, but I don't know if it has them in any sort of a linked network that is connected to AAA batteries, radars and other SAMs. That is more important than the number of SAM units you have. In addition, it would probably be possible to cover all of Taiwan with two or three SAM units. But considering that the Chinese get to strike first, they know where almost every permanant installation of the ROC military is and the will send massive amounts of planes at the island, very redundant SAM coverage is necessary