US announces $345-M military aid package for Taiwan

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 31 ------ The United States announced $345 million in military aid for Taiwan, the Biden administration's first major package that draws on Washington's own stockpiles to help the self-governing island counter China. Under the package which includes defense, education and training for the Taiwanese — Washington will send man-portable air defense systems, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles, said two US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters ahead of the announcement.

US lawmakers have been pressuring the Pentagon and White House to send weapons to Taiwan. The goals are to help it counter China and to deter it from considering attacking by providing Taipei enough weaponry that it would make the price of invasion too high. While Chinese diplomats protested the move, Taiwan's trade office in Washington said the US decision to pull arms and other materiel from its stores provided "an important tool to support Taiwan's self-defense." In a statement, it pledged to work with the US to maintain "peace, stability and the status quo across the Taiwan Strait."

Taiwan's Defense Ministry also expressed its appreciation in a statement on Saturday, thanking "the US for its firm commitment to Taiwan's security."

The package is in addition to nearly $19 billion in military sales of F-16s and other major weapons systems that the US has approved for Taiwan. Delivery of those weapons has been hampered by supply chain issues that started during the coronavirus pandemic and have been exacerbated by the global defense industrial base pressures created by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The difference is that this aid is part of a presidential authority approved by Congress last year to draw weapons from current US military stockpiles, so Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales. This gets weapons delivered faster than providing funding for new weapons. The Pentagon has used similar authority to get billions of dollars worth of munitions to Ukraine.

Taiwan split from mainland China in 1949 amid civil war. Chinese President Xi Jinping maintains Beijing's right to take over the self-ruling democratic island by force, if necessary. China has accused the US of turning Taiwan into a "powder keg" through the billions of dollars in weapons sales it has pledged. The US maintains a "One China" policy under which it does not recognize Taiwan's as an independent country and has no formal diplomatic relations with the island in deference to Beijing. But US law requires a credible defense for Taipei and for Washington to treat all threats to the island as matters of "grave concern."

Getting stockpiles of weapons to Taiwan now, before an attack begins, is one of the lessons America has learned from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told The Associated Press (AP) earlier this year. Ukraine "was more of a cold-start approach than the planned approach we have been working on for Taiwan, and we will apply those lessons," she said, adding that efforts to resupply Taiwan after a conflict erupted would be complicated because it was an island.

China regularly sends warships and planes across the center line in the Taiwan Strait that provides a buffer between the sides, as well as into Taipei's air defense identification zone, in an effort to intimidate the island's 23 million people and wear down its military capabilities.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China's embassy in Washington, D.C. said in a statement that Beijing was "firmly opposed" to US military ties with Taiwan. Washington should "stop selling arms to Taiwan" and "stop creating new factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait," Liu added.

Source: manilatimes.net