UN details massive US arms sales to Taiwan

[Jcrowley]

UN details massive US arms sales to Taiwan
Published: Monday, 11 September, 2006, 09:56 AM Doha Time

TAIPEI: The UN Conventional Arms Registry (UNCAR) shows that the US has sold huge amounts of weapons to Taiwan in the past decade to help defend Taiwan against China, the Central News Agency (CNA) said yesterday. CNA said that the US has reported its arms sales to UNCAR from 1995 to 2005, but has been asked by the UN to stop the reporting as Taiwan is not a UN member.

In line with the UN decision, the US will stop reporting its arms transfers to Taiwan next year, but will publicise the information separately in the spirit of transparency, CNA quoted an unnamed State Department official as saying. According to the UN’s registry, the weapons’ systems the US has provided to Taiwan from 1995-2005 have formed the backbone of Taiwan’s national defence.

In the past 11 years, the US has transferred to Taiwan about 400 M60A3 tanks, 150 F-16 A/B warplanes, 8 destroyers, 6 frigates, 50 AH-1 attack helicopters/OH-58 attack/search helicopters, 52 assault amphibious full-tracked landing vehicles, 28 M109A5 self-propelled howitzers, CNA said in a dispatch from Geneva.
There was no exact account of the missiles the US has sold to Taiwan, but the most important include 120 AIM-120 AMRAAM, 500 Sparrows and an unspecified number of Standards.

The US has also provided Taiwan with Harpoon and Maverick missiles as well as three HARMs, which are used to destroy anti-missile systems.

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.aspx?cu_no=2&item_no=107085&version=1&template_id=45&parent_id=25

[mediaman007]

1. Who the hell pays for this? How about asking those millionaires, who

got the Bush* tax break to give them a tank or two. This is nuts!

[Up2Late]

4. Taiwan is paying for all this, a better question might be...

...are these some of the "weapon systems" that should have gone to support our troops in Iraq? This is a lot of "equipment."

This is really going to piss off our #1 trading partner (China) in a BIG way.

[Monkeyman]

2. Hey we found part of the 26 billion missing from Iraq

[Up2Late]

3. Oh, this is GOOD, They asked the U.S. to stop REPORTING the sales...

...not stop the SALES!

Beautiful.:eyes:

[breakaleg]

5. This is a good thing. Taiwan needs to be able to defend itself from China

and continue to be a democracy.