The US will provide Taiwan a military package worth $345 million, including defense systems and training, which for the first time would be drawn from the US’ existing stockpile to aid the island country in East Asia to combat China, the White House announced on Friday.
The package includes defense, training, and education for the Taiwanese. According to two US officials, Washington will provide man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, intelligence, surveillance capabilities, firearms, and missiles.
The lawmakers in the US are pressuring the Pentagon and the White House to transport weapons to Taiwan as quickly as possible. Their strategy aims to arm Taipei with enough weapons so as to raise the cost of invasion high and prevent China from attacking and even counter it when needed.
Taiwan’s trade office in Washington said the US providing weapons and other material from its stores is “an important tool to support Taiwan’s self-defense”, even though Chinese diplomats disapprove of it. In a statement, it promised to cooperate with the United States and maintain “peace, stability, and the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.”
The package comes with about $19 billion in military sales of F-16s and other important weapons that the US has planned for Taiwan. The supply chain of these weapons was impeded during the pandemic and made worse by the global industrial base constraint caused by the Ukraine war.
Taiwan is waiting for military production and sales as the aid comes under presidential authority sanctioned by Congress in 2022 to provide arms from existing US military stockpiles. This will enable weapons to be transported faster than providing financial aid for new arms.
The Pentagon used a similar method to provide arms worth billions to Ukraine.
In 1949, Taiwan separated from China during the civil war. Chinese President Xi Jinping believes it is China’s right to claim the independent island even if it has to be done forcefully. China holds the US responsible for transforming Taiwan into a “powder keg” by promising weapons sales worth billions.
The US believes in a “One China” policy and does not view Taiwan’s formal independence and is not obligated to any formal diplomatic ties with the island concerning Beijing. This law requires enough defense for Taiwan and cautions the US to consider any threat to the island as a “grave concern.”
Earlier this year, Kathleen Hicks, Pentagon deputy defense secretary, informed the Associated Press (AP), Taiwan receiving weapons before the China attacks is something the US took back from Russia invading Ukraine.
She said 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.” And further added that helping Taiwan after the attack begins would be complicated.
China deploys warships and planes beyond the center line into the Taiwan Strait that serves as a shield between the sides, as well as into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, to alarm its 23 million people and warn its military.
In a statement, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, said on Friday that Beijing “firmly opposed” US military relations with Taiwan and that the US must “stop selling arms to Taiwan” and “stop creating new factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait.”
