{"id":1026887,"date":"2021-11-18T09:44:06","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T14:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1026887"},"modified":"2021-11-18T09:44:09","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T14:44:09","slug":"taiwan-commissions-advanced-f-16s-as-china-threat-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/taiwan-commissions-advanced-f-16s-as-china-threat-grows\/","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan Commissions Advanced F-16s as China Threat Grows"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftaiwan-commissions-advanced-f-16s-as-china-threat-grows%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1026887&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/pjimage-11.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>By Ann Wang<\/p>\n<p>CHIAYI, Taiwan (Reuters) \u2014 Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen lauded military cooperation with Washington on Thursday as she commissioned the first combat wing of F-16 fighters upgraded with U.S. help to bolster the island&#8217;s defences during rising tensions between Taipei and Beijing.<\/p>\n<p>Frequent Chinese and U.S. military exercises in the region have raised fears of conflict touched off by a crisis over democratically-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory.<\/p>\n<p>Tsai told a ceremony at an air base in the southern Taiwanese city of Chiayi to unveil the first squadron of its most advanced F-16s, the F-16V, that the project showed the firm commitment of the Taiwan-U.S. partnership.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I believe that as long as we adhere to the values of democracy and freedom, there will be more like-minded countries standing on the same front with us,&#8221; she said, speaking on the same stage as the top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan, Sandra Oudkirk.<\/p>\n<p>The United States has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan but is the island&#8217;s main international backer and arms supplier, to Beijing&#8217;s fury.<\/p>\n<p>The T$110 billion ($3.96 billion) F-16 upgrade is led by manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp and Taiwan&#8217;s Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC), and is the latest example of military cooperation between Washington and Taipei.<\/p>\n<p>Taiwan has been converting 141 F-16A\/B jets into the F-16V type, 64 of which have already been upgraded, and has additionally ordered 66 new F-16Vs, which have new avionics, weapons and radar systems to better face down the Chinese air force, including its J-20 stealth fighter.<\/p>\n<p>The F-16Vs can carry Raytheon Technologies Corp&#8217;s advanced AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles.<\/p>\n<p>To a backdrop of dance music broadcast over the air base, the F-16s showed off their mettle with combat take offs and landings, and flying low in formation above the runway.<\/p>\n<p>Tsai said that as more F-16Vs entered service, Taiwan&#8217;s defences would be &#8220;even stronger&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Taiwan&#8217;s air force is well trained but dwarfed by China&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>The United States in 2019 approved an $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, a deal that would take the island&#8217;s F-16 fleet to more than 200 jets, the largest in Asia.<\/p>\n<p>China has announced sanctions on Lockheed Martin for selling arms to Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p>($1 = 27.7470 Taiwan dollars)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ann Wang CHIAYI, Taiwan (Reuters) \u2014 Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen lauded military cooperation with Washington on Thursday as she commissioned the first combat wing of F-16 fighters upgraded with &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1026887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}