CNA,
The first batch of US-made AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles sold to Taiwan have been delivered in full and on time, a Ministry of National Defense (MND) spokesman said yesterday.
MND spokesman Major General Huang Suey-sheng told a press conference that the missiles had been delivered on time and that the US was therefore not obliged to pay compensation for delay in delivery.
Major General Chou Meng-pai , deputy chief of the general staff at the Air Force General Headquarters, echoed Huang's words.
Huang and Chou confirmed a statement made by Vice Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min on Monday that the missiles had been delivered and that Taiwan was not discussing compensation with the US.
The officers called the press conference to deny statements made by Air Force Commander-in-Chief General Lee Tian-yu on the same day that the delivery of the missiles would be postponed for some time.
Lee told a group of journalists after attending a closed-door meeting of the National Defense Committee that it would be some time before the AIM-120 missiles could be commissioned.
Taiwan has ordered 200 AIM-120 missiles to be installed on its F-16 jet fighters.
Lee said the US would deliver the missiles in stages, adding that they were not expected to be test-fired in the near future.
“The United States has made the `no test-firing' decision out of concern that the missiles' function keys would likely be decoded by China if they were test-fired,” Lee explained.
Noting that the missiles have not been test-fired outside the US, Lee said US authorities were concerned about the possibility that other countries could acquire the capability to counter them by decoding the function keys.
“The missiles can be test-fired in Taiwan after our electronic surveillance and security measures have seen further improvement,” Lee said.
He had also said that the air force had begun negotiating compensation terms with the US for postponement in delivery.
Lee's remarks were interpreted as a response to a local media report that the US had dropped its plan to deliver the first batch of AIM-120 missiles in the run-up to the presidential election in March.
The report said that in light of cross-strait relations, the US had decided not to deliver the advanced missile systems to Taiwan before the election.
Both Huang and Chou, however, declined to comment on the contradictory comments made by the vice minister of national defense and the commander-in-chief of the air force.
The AIM-120 is a guided, air-to-air missile with an all-weather, beyond-visual-range capability and active radio frequency target detection. It is faster, smaller and lighter than its precursor, the AIM-7 Sparrow series, and has improved capabilities against low-altitude targets. It incorporates an active radar with an inertial reference unit and micro-computer system. Once the missile closes in on a target, its active radar guides it to intercept the target, according to military experts.
Previous press reports said the US had agreed to sell the missiles to Taipei on the condition that they be stored in the US and only delivered when China acquired a weapons system of similar capability, such as the Russian-made AA-12.
The US imposed the restriction mainly to avoid criticism that it was triggering an arms race in the Taiwan Strait by shipping the sophisticated weaponry. Both the AA-12 and the AIM-120 fall into the category of active radar-homing and fire-and-forget missiles. But since China had acquired AA-12 missiles, the US had agreed to deliver the AIM-120 missiles to Taiwan in stages.
