Eric Gomez and Benjamin Giltner
July 2024 was a quiet month for the backlog of US weapons that have been sold but not delivered to Taiwan. There were no new arms sales notified to Congress and no news of any weapons deliveries to Taiwan. The Taiwan arms sale backlog stands at $20.5 billion.
Figures 1 and 2 show the backlog by dollar value of weapons categories (asymmetric, traditional, and munitions), with Table 1 providing a detailed breakdown of the weapons platforms in the backlog.
While there were no new arms sales for July, there were two developments in Taiwan arms sales worth mentioning.
On July 17, China announced its suspension of arms control and nuclear proliferation talks with the United States due to recent US arms sales to Taiwan. These negotiations began after the November 2023 Biden-Xi summit in San Francisco, though China was reportedly not responsive to US efforts to have subsequent rounds of discussions after an initial round in late 2023.
The breakdown of US-China nuclear talks is a disappointing development, though given the current state of the relationship not much is lost from their cancellation. To halt US arms sales, Beijing typically sanctions US defense companies, despite these companies being legally prohibited from doing business with China. Linking nuclear talks with arms sales, especially over a sale of short-range loitering munitions that pose no threat to the Chinese mainland, is unlikely to change US behavior.
The second piece of news from July pertains to an August 2023 sale of Infrared Search and Track (IRST) systems that will equip Taiwan’s F‑16 fighter aircraft. IRST pods search for infrared emissions, such as heat from engine exhaust, allowing them to detect targets with a small radar signature. A stealth aircraft may appear very small on radar but is easier to detect using IRST systems. Our dataset codes the IRST pod as a traditional capability because it is a sub-component of another traditional capability: crewed fighter aircraft.
According to a Taiwanese government e‑procurement notice from July 12, 2024, the IRST pods are now under contract. The notice gives a date range of June 2024 to December 2030 for the contract, but it does not specify how many IRST systems are being procured. Nor does the notice indicate when delivery is expected to be completed. There is also no Department of Defense notice for an IRST contract award as of August 5, 2024, meaning we are currently unable to cross-reference the Taiwan procurement notice against a US defense contract announcement.
Moreover, the final delivery date for the IRST pods is unknown. The period mentioned in the procurement notice may include support for IRST pods after they are delivered and installed on Taiwan’s fighter aircraft. Our dataset would remove the IRST systems from the backlog after delivery, and not cover post-delivery support. In the meantime, we will keep the IRST systems in the backlog and will continue to monitor its progress.
Taiwan Arms Backlog Dataset, July 2024