In Wendell Minnick's article "Upgrades on All Fronts" (May 11), he seemed to make a lot of sensational yet groundless speculation and subjective statements to describe the current Taiwan-US arms sales.
First of all, the story stated that "corruption is a factor in all arms sales," which accused all US foreign arms sales with Taiwan of having corruption involved. It is totally at variance with any factual support without evidence. In Taiwan, foreign military sales (FMS) cases are processed and managed by the same standard operating procedures that the US military follows, largely including a transparent budgetary review process and strict monitoring mechanism. In addition, Taiwan, as a full democracy and with a rule-of-law society, will not tolerate any corruption given public scrutiny. If there were any evidence of such cases, they ought to be handed over to Taiwan's appropriate authorities for a thorough investigation.
More seriously, the story mentioned no real case but claimed that "members of the legislature's defense committee get the lion share of kickbacks." According to Taiwan's law and regulations, legislators can examine the defense budget, but they in no way can earn any commission out of FMS cases.
Finally, the story confusingly accepted such sarcastically subjective comments as "Taiwan is buying US protection." Taiwan's FMS have always been conducted after full consideration of security threats, its own operational requirements and budget plans.
For the past 65 years, the Republic of China (Taiwan) has been striving diligently to defend itself with strong and sufficient self-defense capabilities against any possible threats from mainland China. Our armed forces will never place their hope for peace either on an enemy's goodwill or another country's protection.
James K.J. Lee
Deputy representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US, Washington
