U.S. selling Hercules to Taiwan

Press, 21 June 1984, Page 8

U.S. selling Hercules to Taiwan

NZPA-Reuter Washington

The United States, which says that it is ready to sell some weapons to China, has now announced that it also plans to provide Peking’s rivals on Taiwan with 12 Hercules transports. The Defence Department told Congress yesterday that it intended to sell the Hercules to the Nationalists as replacements for older aircraft now flown by Taiwan’s Air Force. The cost of the planes, spare parts, and

training is valued at SUS32S million (about $505 million). "Taiwan’s military transport aircraft fleet is composed almost entirely of 1940 s and 19505-vintage equipment,” the Pentagon told Congress in justifying the sale.

“The sale of this equipment and support will not affect the basic military balance in the region,” it said in an obvious reference to China, which has demanded that Washington should stop supplying arms

to Taiwan. Last week the United States capped a visit to Washington by the Chinese Defence Minister, General Zhang Aiping, by agreeing in principle to sell some weapons to Peking. It was the first weapons deal with China since the Communist victory on the mainland in 1949.

Officials said that the sale to Peking was likely to include air defence and anti-tank missiles, artillery shells, and some technology.

Details would be worked out later. China has undertaken a programme to modernise its large, but outmoded 3.2-million-man Armed Forces.

American arms sales to Taiwan have been a block to closer United StatesChina relations, although in recent years the United States has cut back on the value and sophistication of the weapons it provides to the Nationalists. While the United States

has agreed to supply Taiwan with arms. for its defence needs, it has also promised China that it will not increase quantities of weapons to the Nationalists or sell them more advanced weapons. The "H” model of the turbo-prop Hercules to be sold to Taiwan was first delivered to the United States Air Force in 1975, and is an updated version of a plane initially flown in 1955. It has been sold throughout the world.