US to Transfer Aegis-Class Naval Weaponry to Taiwan: Report
TAIPEI, April 6 (AFP) - The United States has agreed to provide Taiwan with advanced Aegis-class warships and Taipei is to come up with the purchase proposal this year, a report said Tuesday.
"Washington already gave the approval when General Tang Fei, chief of the general staff, visited the US late last year," the China Times Express said. Tang is now the defense minister.
"The navy will formally raise the arms deal at the bilateral military meeting this year," the report said.
The defense ministry would not comment on the report.
Washington has remained Taipei's leading arms supplier despite the switching of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
The paper did not say if the Aegis-class destroyers, at an estimated cost of 160 billion Taiwan dollars (4.8 billion US) each, with up to four to be purchased, would be built here or the United States.
The warship, the most advanced destroyer in the US navy, impressed Taipei in tracking ballistic missiles during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis.
The 8,000-tonne destroyer is armed with 90 Standard II surface-to-air missiles, eight Harpoon ship-to-ship missiles, MK32 torpedoes and Tomahawk missiles.
Beijing opposes any arms sales to Taiwan which it regards as a breakaway province since the Nationalists fled there in 1949 at the end of a civil war.
chinatimes.com.tw |
