林中斌 部落格 / Blog Chong-Pin Lin

- The U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin Corp. reached agreement this week on a US$1.3 billion deal to refurbish a dozen antisubmarine aircraft for sale to Taiwan, the ''last step'' forward in a major arms deal apparently stalled since 2007, according to a senior Taiwanese legislative aide familiar with the matter.

''The deal is now going very smoothly'' the aide told Kyodo News on condition of anonymity.

''This is the last step,'' the aide added, referring to plans for the U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin to ink a contract in the coming weeks on refurbishing 12 P3-C Orion aircraft that have already been cleared by the U.S. Congress for sale to Taiwan.

Long-awaited progress on the deal came as the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama said it would seek to boost defense ties with Taiwan, a sticking point in U.S. relations with China, which claims the self-ruled island as part of its territory.

The push for the planes also coincides with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's first overseas visit, including to China, as top U.S. diplomat.

U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair hinted in a Feb. 12 Senate committee meeting that Washington would sell Taipei more arms.

''Taiwan should not be so defenseless that it feels it has to do everything China says,'' the former 4-star Navy admiral said, adding, ''That means we're going to have to help them some more in order to maintain a balance.''

Clinton said Monday that Washington's stance on arms sales to Taipei remains unchanged under Obama, citing the Taiwan Relations Act, which has required Washington to provide Taipei arms of a defensive nature since 1979.

Clinton's comments generated fresh tensions with China ahead of her arrival Friday in Beijing, which is still fuming over Congress' approval in October of a US$6.5 billion arms package to Taipei.

Beijing at the time canceled a slew of planned military exchanges with Washington, a ban that remains in effect.

The US$6.5 billion package includes 30 Apache attack helicopters and 330 Patriot (PAC-III) missiles and dates back to a 2001 deal valued at roughly US$18 billion. Amid partisan bickering, Taiwan's parliament pared down the package over six years and budgeted some items separately.

Designed for hunting submarines, the turboprop-driven P3-C planes, whose delivery to Taiwan should start in 2013, were also included in the 2001 package, but preceded by roughly a year the US$6.5 billion deal in their notification to Congress, a key hurdle in the U.S. foreign military sales process.

But the deal appeared to have stalled since receiving congressional approval in 2007.

Though the planes were cleared for sale before Obama took office, the timing of further movement on the deal signals Obama's readiness to increase military engagement with Taiwan, said Lin Chung-pin, a former deputy defense minister.

''This is part of Admiral Blair's and Secretary Clinton's message,'' Lin said by phone Thursday, adding, ''It serves U.S. interests in the region to continue on with these deals.''

The American Institute in Taiwan, Washington's de facto embassy in Taipei, declined to comment, referring Kyodo to Lockheed Martin's Taipei office. The company did not immediately return phone calls Thursday.

==Kyodo