The US will supply Taiwan with $345 million in defense equipment, services and training, using the fast-track authority that it has relied on to speed arms to Ukraine.
(Bloomberg) — The US will supply Taiwan with $345 million in defense equipment, services and training, using the fast-track authority that it has relied on to speed arms to Ukraine.
The package will include “critical defensive stockpiles, multi-domain awareness, anti-armor and air-defense capabilities,” said Lieutenant Colonel Martin Meiners, a Defense Department spokesperson, without providing details on the specific weaponry the US will provide.
The Biden administration has emphasized its long-standing commitment to support Taiwan’s self-defense, but officials in Beijing have accused the US of stoking tensions between the world’s two biggest economies over its backing of the self-governing island.
“We are committed to helping them get the capability they need to defend themselves,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a visit to Brisbane, Australia, on Saturday. “So this is no change from what we’ve done in the past.”
China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, quickly criticized the decision.
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“China is firmly opposed to US’s military ties with and arms sales to Taiwan,” Chinese Embassy Spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement. Liu called on the US to “stop creating new factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait.”
The weapons and support equipment will come from existing stockpiles under what’s known as a Presidential Drawdown Authority. That lets the US sidestep the often-lengthy process of contracting and producing weapons, which lawmakers say has resulted in a $19 billion backlog in armaments that have been approved but not yet delivered to Taiwan.
Congress authorized President Joe Biden to use as much as $1 billion in US inventory for the island democracy in the National Defense Authorization Act for the current year. Congress didn’t appropriate funds to replace the equipment so the Pentagon will have to seek that money later.
Austin said the drawdown wouldn’t affect support for Ukraine.
Meiners said the Pentagon will not provide a timeline, but that the administration is “working expeditiously” to deliver the assistance.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry thanked the US for its firm commitment to the island’s security in a statement on Saturday that didn’t offer further details or address the issue of assistance.
“Taiwan and US will continue close cooperation on security topics to maintain the peaceful and stable status-quo across the strait,” the statement read.
US Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House China Committee, said in a statement that the Committee had called for bolstering Taiwan’s self-defense.
“This decision by the Biden administration is welcome news for those of us aiming to strengthen stability and security in the Indo-Pacific,” Krishnamoorthi said in the statement.
Republicans were more critical. “I am glad to see the Biden administration send this much-needed weapons package to Taiwan as Communist China eyes further aggression. However, this should have occurred much earlier and could have been more robust,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in a statement.
The Biden administration has sought to improve ties with Beijing in recent months, with a string of high-profile visits to China by cabinet officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Meiners said the timing of the drawdown announcement, released in a brief statement on Friday evening, was not influenced by Blinken or Yellen’s travel.
The Biden administration and its allies have grown increasingly concerned about the pace of China’s military modernization and have warned that the country’s leaders want its armed forces to be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines have said they don’t see an effort by China to seize Taiwan by force as imminent.
–With assistance from Jacob Gu, Cindy Wang, Tania Chen and Ben Westcott.
(Adds Austin’s remarks starting in fourth paragraph.)
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