Trump’s Sale of F-16 Jets to Taiwan Is Making China Nervous
- Plan to grant Taiwan’s request for F-16s signals shift by U.S.
- Beijing calls efforts to back Taipei ‘extremely dangerous’
A Lockheed Martin Corp. F-16 fighter jet.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
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The U.S. may finally sell Taiwan the warplanes it has sought for more than a decade to defend against China. Their arrival would deal more of a political shock than a military blow to Beijing.
Trump administration officials have given tacit approval to Taipei’s request to buy more than 60 Lockheed Martin Corp. F-16s, according to people familiar with the matter, setting the stage for the first such deal since 1992. While a few dozen fighter jets would hardly tip the military balance against the increasingly powerful Chinese military, it would signal a new American willingness to back the democratically run island.