DHARAMSHALA, September 22 – China has expressed its disappointment over a US deal to upgrade Taiwan’s ageing fleet of US-built F-16 fighter planes as “grave interference” in its internal affairs.
Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun said the $5.85bn deal sent a “gravely mistaken signal to pro-Taiwan independence separatist forces”.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and its military superiority over the island has steadily increased.
But the US is legally bound to help Taiwan defend itself.
The announcement suggests the US will not now sell Taiwan a newer generation of F-16, as Taipei had hoped.
“It must be pointed out that this wrongful course by the US side will unavoidably damage Sino-American relations and co-operation and exchanges in the military, security and other fields,” Zhang said in a statement on the ministry’s website.
“China urges the US to clearly understand the acute sensitivity and serious harmfulness of selling arms to Taiwan, and to treat China’s solemn stance seriously,” he added.
In the past year there has been growing concern that the US resolve to help Taiwan defend itself may have weakened, as Washington increasingly seeks good relations with China.
US officials said the F-16 A/B fighters will undergo a retrofit which will bring them up to the same standards as the more advanced C/D models.
“After the upgrade, the air force’s combat capability will be advanced hugely,” Taiwanese Defence Minister Kao Hua-chu said at a press conference in Taipei.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said the island remained under threat from China’s military expansion.
“Improving our defence capability is a crucial… measure to sustain regional security and stable development across the strait,” it said in a statement.
But Taiwan also said it would continue its attempts to purchase more than 60 of the C/D planes, which are considered more of a match for China’s latest war planes.
