HONG KONG, July 18. /TASS/: Taiwan does not plan on reselling Hawk surface-to-air missile systems (SAMS) to the US just so they can turn around and send them to Ukraine, Chiu Kuo-cheng, head of Taiwan’s defense agency said on Tuesday.
"Deadlines have already been set in accordance with which the Hawk SAMS will be got rid of every year; they will be replaced with Tien Kung (Sky Bow - TASS) SAMS. After that, they will be destroyed," Taiwan’s Central News Agency quoted him as saying.
"The Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology is in charge of partial disposal. We do not want to hand them [the Hawk SAMS] over to other people, countries and so on because military products are a sensitive matter which you cannot handle arbitrarily," he pointed out.
SAMS supplies
On Friday, the Taiwan News portal, citing its sources, reported that the US intended to buy back from Taiwan decommissioned mid-range Phase III MIM-23 Hawk SAMS along with hundreds of missiles so that they could be given to Ukraine. According to the sources, this agreement was reached last year. Per the news portal, Taiwan’s four battalions and 18 squadrons are armed with MIM-23 Hawk SAMS and hundreds of missiles for them.
Taiwan’s defense agency did not confirm this information but noted that the island’s legislation provides for reselling arms under certain circumstances. This April, the military agency reported that it was planned to earmark funds to decommission 250 Hawk missiles by the end of this year.
MIM-23 Hawk SAMS have been in Taiwan’s arsenal since the 1960s and were decommissioned only this June. They can strike targets at a height of up to 20,000 meters and a distance of up to 50 kilometers. According to the news portal, from 1965 to 2017, Taiwanese armed forces’ MIM-23 Hawk SAMS were used in live fire drills at least 41 times. In all, 324 missiles have been fired with 293 successfully striking their targets. Thus, their effectiveness amounts to about 90.4%.
Taiwan has been governed by its local administration since 1949 when the remaining Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) fled to the island after suffering a defeat in China’s civil war. Since then, Taiwan has preserved the flag and some other symbols of the Republic of China that had existed in mainland China before the Communists came to power. Beijing regards the island as one of its provinces and this position is supported by most countries, including Russia.
