To oppose China, the US announces $345 million in military assistance for Taiwan, including defense systems and training.
As part of the Biden administration's first significant package to use American stockpiles to aid Taiwan in containing China, the United States announced $345 million in military assistance for Taiwan on Friday.
According to the White House's statement, the package would cover Taiwanese training, education, and defense. According to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues before the announcement, Washington will deploy MANPADS, intelligence and surveillance tools, weapons, and missiles.
The Pentagon and White House are under pressure from American politicians to deliver weaponry to Taiwan quickly. By giving Taipei enough weapons to make an invasion too expensive, the objectives are to assist Taipei in countering China and to discourage China from considering striking.
Chinese officials objected to the action, but Taiwan's trade office in Washington claimed that the United States' decision to remove weapons and other supplies from its warehouses gave Taiwan "an important tool to support Taiwan's self-defense." It promised in a statement to cooperate with the US to uphold "peace, stability, and the status quo across the Taiwan Strait."
The package comes on top of the almost $19 billion in military sales to Taiwan that the US has authorized, including shipments of F-16s and other expensive weaponry equipment. Supply chain problems, which first surfaced during the COVID-19 outbreak and were exacerbated by the strains brought on by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, have hindered the delivery of those weapons.
The distinction is that Taiwan won't have to wait for military manufacturing and sales because this help is a component of a presidential power that was approved by Congress last year to draw weapons from current U.S. military stockpiles. Compared to funding for new weapons, this expedites the delivery of weaponry.
A similar power was utilized by the Pentagon to deliver to Ukraine weapons valued at billions of dollars.
During a civil war, Taiwan broke away from China in 1949. Chinese President Xi Jinping insists China has the right to annex the island that is currently governed by itself, using force if necessary. The U.S. has been accused by China of turning Taiwan into a "powder keg" by promising to sell billions of dollars' worth of weaponry.
In deference to Beijing, the United States upholds a "One China" policy in which it refuses to formally acknowledge Taiwan's independence and has no diplomatic ties with the island. However, according to American law, Taiwan must have a convincing defense and the United States must take any threats to the island as a "grave concern."
One of the lessons the United States has learned from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to Pentagon deputy defense secretary Kathleen Hicks, is to get stocks of weapons to Taiwan right away, before an attack begins.
Ukrainian policy "was more of a cold-start approach than the planned approach we have been working on for Taiwan, and we will apply those lessons," Hicks added. Taiwan is an island, so efforts to resupply it following a fight would be challenging, she said.
In an effort to scare Taiwan's 23 million citizens and deplete its military resources, China routinely deploys warships and aircraft into Taiwan's air defense identification zone and across the center line in the Taiwan Strait that acts as a buffer between the two sides.
Beijing is "firmly opposed" to U.S. military connections with Taiwan, according to Liu Pengyu, a spokeswoman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, who made the comment in a statement on Friday.
