{"id":55921,"date":"2026-10-02T08:39:55","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T02:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=55921"},"modified":"2026-10-02T08:39:55","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T02:54:55","slug":"first-new-f-16v-fighter-jets-to-arrive-in-taiwan-to-bolster-defences-against-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/first-new-f-16v-fighter-jets-to-arrive-in-taiwan-to-bolster-defences-against-china\/","title":{"rendered":"First new F-16V fighter jets to arrive in Taiwan to bolster defences against China"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reuters :\u00a0 The first two of a batch of 66 new F-16V fighter jets \u200cordered in 2019 will arrive in Taiwan on Friday after months of delays, helping to strengthen an air force that has to scramble almost daily to shadow China’s military.<\/p>\n

Taiwan faces a rising military threat from Beijing, which claims the democratically governed island as its \u200bown territory. Taipei has complained of repeated delays to weapons ordered from the United States, its \u200bmost important international backer and arms supplier.<\/p>\n

The delivery, to the Taitung air base on the \u2060island’s mountainous east coast, comes amid growing concern in Taiwan about the Trump administration’s commitment to arming Taipei, despite \u200bWashington saying there has been no change in policy.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters at parliament in Taipei, Defence Minister Wellington Koo said \u200bthere would be other new F-16Vs arriving soon, though he did not give details. “Of course we won’t only have delivered these two by year-end,” he said.<\/p>\n

The United States in 2019 approved an $8 billion sale of Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), opens new tab F-16V fighter jets to Taiwan, a \u200bdeal that would take the island’s F-16 fleet to more than 200 jets. But delivery of the planes has \u200bbeen hit by issues including software problems.The arrival of the first two aircraft will come almost exactly a week after US \u200cPresident Donald Trump \u2060met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.<\/p>\n

Trump said in May, after meeting Xi in Beijing, that he was holding a new $14 billion package for Taiwan in abeyance, though he did approve one worth $11 billion in December 2025.
\nThe F-16Vs have advanced avionics, weapons and radar systems to better face down the Chinese air force, including its stealthy J-20 fighters.<\/p>\n

An \u200bupgrade programme for Taiwan’s existing \u200bF-16s was completed in \u20602023. The United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, but the two have no formal diplomatic relations.<\/p>\n

Beijing has repeatedly told Washington \u200bto stop arming Taiwan. The Chinese foreign ministry did not respond to a request \u200bfor comment on \u2060the arrival of the F-16s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reuters :\u00a0 The first two of a batch of 66 new F-16V fighter jets \u200cordered in 2019 will arrive in Taiwan on Friday after months of delays, helping to strengthen an air force that has to scramble almost daily to shadow China’s military. Taiwan faces a rising military threat from Beijing, which claims the democratically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55921"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55921"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55928,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55921\/revisions\/55928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}