Recently, the Philippines, instigated by the United States, has been stirring up trouble in the South China Sea. However, "Nikkei Asia" revealed on the 27th that the United States seems to be the "thick thigh" behind the Philippines, but in fact, for various reasons, it has seriously affected the Philippines to obtain the key to "responding to the Chinese threat".
According to the report, the Philippines previously declared that in order to "monitor China's naval and air operations in the South China Sea", the country's air force, which is outdated, urgently needs to be updated. To this end, the Philippines first introduced a small number of FA-50 light attack aircraft developed by South Korea and converted from trainer aircraft, and then asked the United States for the purchase of new F-16 fighters. In June 2021, the United States officially approved the supply of 12 of the latest F-16V fighter jets to the Philippines. In terms of performance, these latest batches of American F-16V fighters are equipped with advanced AN APG-83 active phased array radar, which has the ability to launch AIM-120 series medium-range air-to-air missiles, and the general performance is comparable to the PLA's J-10C fighter jets - of course, in the absence of the support system, the Philippine F-16V fighter alone can actually not play much role.
However, the entire procurement will cost about 24300 million US dollars, not only is the unit price as high as 200 million US dollars, even more expensive than the F-35** fighter, but the overall budget is also more than half of the Philippine annual defense budget, which is simply unbearable for the Philippines, which is shy in pocket.
In order to solve the problem of money, the Philippines once pinned its hopes on free military aid from the United States. Philippine Ambassador to the United States Romoudes said, "We hope that the United States will provide some kind of assistance so that we can modernize our armed forces as soon as possible." However, considering that the Pentagon has already sold the F-16V for a sky-high price, the Philippines hopes that the United States will suddenly switch to providing it for free, which is tantamount to expecting pie in the sky ......
On the other hand, the ambiguous attitude of the United States on the issue of providing F-16V to the Philippines is also due to "lack of heart". Previously, Taiwan admitted that despite the repeated urging of US lawmakers, due to the lag in the progress of the first chain and technological development, the project of providing 66 new F-16V fighter jets to Taiwan, which was listed as a priority by the Pentagon, was forced to postpone, let alone meet the needs of the Philippines on time.
In desperation, the Philippines pinned its hopes on second-hand F-16 fighter jets.
Romoudes revealed that the Philippines may cancel the agreement to purchase new F-16V fighters from the United States, and instead buy second-hand fighters from Denmark and other third countries. "I think Denmark has a dozen or more hardly used F-16 fighters that should be available for purchase. ”
Denmark's F-16 fighter jets have been booked for Ukraine) At present, Denmark, Norway and other countries in Northern Europe still have dozens of newly retired F-16A B fighters that can be provided to the outside world. Compared with the retired F-16 fighters of the US military since the Cold War, which have been frequently consumed in various tasks and have basically lost their reuse value, the F-16A B fighters in the Nordic countries have less daily consumption, and the fuselage life is still usable, and they have undergone mid-term transformation, and their overall capabilities are close to the level of the F-16C D, and they also have the ability to launch AIM-120 series medium-range air-to-air missiles. Although it is not as good as the brand-new F-16V, for the Philippine Air Force, at least it has finally regained a professional fighter, and it can be regarded as a solution to the problem.
However, the Philippine plan was once again cut off halfway by the United States. According to the relevant laws, countries equipped with F-16s that want to transfer this US-developed fighter to a third party must first need permission from the US side. The problem is that "in order to offset China's growing influence on the South American region", the United States approved the resale of Danish second-hand F-16 fighters to Argentina in October to prevent China from providing Argentina with the "Thunder" fighter jointly developed by China and Brazil.
On the other hand, the United States also approved the Nordic countries to provide these second-hand F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to meet the urgent needs of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Now that the F-16s for aid to Ukraine have begun the delivery process, "these needs will basically deplete the existing F-16 fighter stocks in the Nordic countries." It can be seen that whether it is Argentina or Ukraine, their status in the hearts of the United States is much higher than that of the Philippines, so although the Philippines was instigated by the United States to be on the front line of provoking China, the United States is very stingy in terms of actual support for the Philippines - in the so-called "Chinese coast guard ship attacking Philippine ship with water cannon" incident not long ago, the nearby US ** boat just watched coldly from the sidelines, which is very revealing.
The Philippines, which is being used as a gun by the United States, is so pathetic.