Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Nobonita Barua said:

Do you think US can start WW3 by delivering F35 with their pilots which literally meaning US troops on Chinese soil?
Would love to see that.

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Delivering fighter jets with US pilots in them is nothing new. Its been done even by Russia. But the question is why would China wanna start WW3 that way? China didn't stop THAAD from being shipped to South Korea. Heck China didn't even stop the decades of US arms exports to Taiwan. Even with the recent sale of offensive weapons like SLAM ERs and ATACMs.

The only scenario I can see China doing a 'Cuban Missile Crisis' is if the US wants to place nuclear armed missiles in Taiwan. That's fantasy off course.

Sardaukar20 said:

Its funny that Taiwan chooses to spend $62bn to buy 66 F-16Vs on a 10-year deal instead of spending that money on F-35s over 10 years.

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It's not sixty-two billion.

When the news was announced, it was reported that Taiwan had signed and that if all the customers took up all the options available to them the total contract for all of them would be $62 billion.


"Taiwan’s purchase of the F-16s marks the first sale of advanced fighter jets to the island since President George H.W. Bush announced approval for 150 F-16s in 1992. A $62 billion figure announced by the Pentagon on Friday is the upper limit of numerous contracts if all potential foreign customers placed their maximum desired number over the decade."

What then happened is some websites that use other people's articles misinterpreted that article and thought the cost of the sale to Taiwan alone was $62 billion.

The DSCA notification for Taiwan was $8 billion, so there's no way it would have escalated to such an extent.

The US is already selling to Taiwan Patriots, SLAM ERs, ATACMs, MQ-9 Reapers, Sea Mines, and submarine tech. So from that logic, I thought, why not go all the way?

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I gave a list of reasons above.


The F-35 will get sold eventually, but not just yet.

I'd like to think its more a case of trying to stop history from repeating - back in the 60s and 70s the US gave U-2 reconnaissance planes to Taiwan, and a couple of these U-2s were downed and ended up in China's hands, while many hauls ended up crashing during training missions. The ROCAF doesn't exactly have the best track record, could you imagine if an F-35 was shot down and ended up in the PLA's hands? Think how far that'd bring the FC-31 program along.

PLA could send jets over Taiwan to defend sovereignty if US send military jets fly over island.

crash8pilot said:

The ROCAF doesn't exactly have the best track record, could you imagine if an F-35 was shot down and ended up in the PLA's hands?

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You'll have to apologise if I get this wrong, but I'm struggling to recall when a Taiwanese F-16 was shot down and captured by the PLA.

As for the U-2s, Taiwan was flying them for over a decade so it's not all that surprising if a few were shot down. The US lost some as well as I'm sure you'll remember. I'm not sure anyone should be making presumptions about the care taken by the ROCAF based on events around half a century ago.

Mr T said:

You'll have to apologise if I get this wrong, but I'm struggling to recall when a Taiwanese F-16 was shot down and captured by the PLA.

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Probably because Taiwan has struggled to man their fleet of Vipers as a result of the end of conscription?

Mr T said:

As for the U-2s, Taiwan was flying them for over a decade so it's not all that surprising if a few were shot down. The US lost some as well as I'm sure you'll remember. I'm not sure anyone should be making presumptions about the care taken by the ROCAF based on events around half a century ago.

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My citing of the U-2 shootdowns is to illustrate the possibility of cutting edge American technology ending up in the hands of China, which could bring many of the PLA's military programs along, regardless if events happened half a century ago. Not that I'm warmongering, but the PLA could possibly get their hands on components of the F-35 via a shootdown, or if an invasion of Taiwan were to happen. Who knows, maybe reunification can be achieved diplomatically within the coming decade, and China could get access to Fat Amy without violence.

Taiwan's purchase of Abram tanks and Viper fighters, as well as the possible procurement of Fat Amy is a nice political gesture to the DoD and State Department. Yet what difference would it make if they can't man their shiny new equipment during peace time... and risk them ending up in the hands of China?

The Block 70 Viper isn't exactly new technology anyway, not when the Flanker program has made leaps and bounds - dare I say the latest J-11 as well as the J-16 come neck and neck with American 4.5 generation fighters. Whereas I imagine China could benefit from 5th gen fighter technology to help bring the FC-31 program along, especially if they were given hands on access to Fat Amy's components rather than blueprints and hacked data. Would America really risk the possibility of proprietary technology ending up in their adversary's hands?

Sardaukar20 said:

The US could delver the F-35s by air with American pilots. Then just hand them over to Taiwan on the ground. China can't blockade the US from delivering those F-35s without starting WW3. I don't know if China wants to start a "Cuban Missile Crisis" scenario over F-35s.

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China doesn't have to destroy the F-35s in flight. They could just fire some railgun projectiles (since we're talking at late 2020s scenario at best) while the F-35s are out taxiing on a runaway* and boom, no more F-35s!

*Those F-35s have to come out sometime, unless the ROCAF keeps the F-35s as stealthy paperweights in an underground bunker 24/7.

Sardaukar20 said:

Delivering fighter jets with US pilots in them is nothing new. Its been done even by Russia. But the question is why would China wanna start WW3 that way? China didn't stop THAAD from being shipped to South Korea. Heck China didn't even stop the decades of US arms exports to Taiwan. Even with the recent sale of offensive weapons like SLAM ERs and ATACMs.

The only scenario I can see China doing a 'Cuban Missile Crisis' is if the US wants to place nuclear armed missiles in Taiwan. That's fantasy off course.

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F-35s would qualitatively improve Taiwan's position in a way that any of the current or past arms exports have not (not to mention the PLA is light years ahead of where it was in 1992).

Besides, Taipei would have to grin and bear it. The Cross Straits military balance will only become more lopsided ten years from now.

Sardaukar20 said:

The US is already selling to Taiwan Patriots, SLAM ERs, ATACMs, MQ-9 Reapers, Sea Mines, and submarine tech. So from that logic, I thought, why not go all the way?

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I wouldn't compare any of these technologies to the F35, China's drone and missile systems are known to be as good or even better than American ones, whereas China still has a clear deficit when it comes to engines.

Sardaukar20 said:

The risk of Chinese spying in Taiwan is perhaps overstated. F-35 designs have already been compromised by Chinese cyber hacking and spying even in the US.

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There is only so much information you can collect through cyber-espionage. Having physical samples is incredibly helpful for reverse engineering. Seriously, literally a single crystal engine blade or slice of RAM would be huge. How would Taiwan ever be able to keep an eye on everyone with access to the planes?

crash8pilot said:

Probably because Taiwan has struggled to man their fleet of Vipers as a result of the end of conscription?

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I think it's fairly objective to say that Taiwan continues to fly F-16 sorties. All reports say they've been scrambling more in 2020 than past years due to PLAAF activity.

My citing of the U-2 shootdowns is to illustrate the possibility of cutting edge American technology ending up in the hands of China

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Yes, but you need to remember that by nature of the plane the U-2 was vulnerable in principle to being shot down because its role was to fly over enemy territory. That meant if it got shot down the wreck would almost certainly be captured.

In contrast the ROCAF doesn't perform flyovers of Chinese territory anymore, and even in event of a war with China I think the ROCAF would keep some distance from the coastline to avoid giving Chinese air-defences an easy way of bringing them down.

Not that I'm warmongering

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No problem, I hadn't thought that anyway.

Who knows, maybe reunification can be achieved diplomatically within the coming decade, and China could get access to Fat Amy without violence.

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I think the chances of that are so remote they wouldn't factor into US thinking. Due to Chinese aggression towards Taiwan I think the chances of the KMT winning the 2024 general elections are not high right now, and the chances of getting both the presidency and a super-majority in the legislative are even more remote. Even if they somehow did, unification couldn't happen without a referendum to allow constitutional change.

All of that by 2030 given China's current policies regarding interacting with Taiwan is about as likely as Xi Jinping turning into Zhao Ziyang and instituting internal Party democracy whilst standing down voluntarily.

Would America really risk the possibility of proprietary technology ending up in their adversary's hands?

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If the US defends Taiwan from a Chinese invasion then it will have similar risks of losing F-35s to China. But as I noted above, I expect that would be mitigated by simply not flying over Chinese territory - not least because neither the US nor Taiwan would need to do that as they have standoff weapons.

Besides, I agree with you that F-35 sales to Taiwan are not going to happen right now. I would be surprised to see a sale before 2025 (assuming Trump doesn't get re-elected somehow).