The US criticized China’s missile buildup along the Taiwan Strait on Thursday and said Washington would continue to sell arms to Taiwan to bolster its defense needs.
“We continue to express concern about the Mainland’s ongoing military build-up on its side of the Strait,” US Deputy Secretary of State John Negoponte told a congressional hearing held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on China-US relations.
“We view China’s build-up as unnecessary and counterproductive. The anxiety it breeds on Taiwan encourages pro-independent inclinations that the Mainland’s missile deployment purports to deter,” said Negroponte, who testified for more than an hour at the hearing, the first the committee has held on China since the Democrats took control of the US Congress last year.
Beijing has repeatedly warned of an invasion should Taiwan declare formal independence.
In his New Year address this year, outgoing President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) warned that China had increased the number of tactical ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan from 200 in 2000 to more than 1,300.
In a warning to Beijing against the use of force, Negroponte said, “we want cross-strait differences to be resolved peacefully and according to the wishes of the people on both sides of the Strait.”
“Nobody should question our resolve in insisting on such a peaceful process,” he said.
Negroponte said Washington would “continue to sell Taiwan defensive arms to maintain the capacity to assist in Taiwan’s defense if needed.”
The US is obliged by law to offer Taiwan a means of self-defense if its security is threatened and is the leading arms supplier to the country, despite switching diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
Aside from the legal obligation, Negroponte said the arms sales also “supports our belief that a Taiwan confident and capable of protecting itself will offer the best prospects for a peaceful resolution of cross-strait differences.”
While Negroponte broke no new ground during the hearing on US policy toward Taiwan, however, he referred to Taiwan as “a country” at least twice during the afternoon hearing.
Negroponte, however, told the hearing that the US will not allow Taiwan to buy advanced versions of the F-16 fighter jets any time soon.
His comments came in response to questions by Republican members of the committee.
Committee chairman Joseph Biden did not mention Taiwan in his opening statement or in his questions. It is believed that he has been pushing for a chance at being secretary of state should the Democrats win the White House in November.
“There are no present plans to offer the F-16s to Taiwan,” Negroponte said in response to a question by Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, a ranking minority member of the East Asia subcommittee.
Negroponte said that the Legislative Yuan “just recently” decided to seek the aircraft and voted initial funding for it, but said “there hasn’t been any subsequent step.”
In fact, the legislature approved US$488 million to begin the procurement process in the middle of last year, a commitment that assumed the US would accept a letter of request and provide purchasing data by last Oct. 31. The State Department barred the Pentagon from accepting the request letter by that deadline, causing the funding commitment to lapse.
The department has continued to bar the request from proceeding, although the Pentagon is known to want the sale to go through.
Pressed by Murkowski about the issue, Negroponte said: “It is not an offer at this particular time.”
Noting the presidential election in Taiwan, he added: “They are in the middle of a political transition in Taiwan, so we’ll have to await developments there.”
Murkowski complained that she had sent a letter on the F-16s to national security advisor Stephen Hadley in October, but had not received a response.
On Taiwan’s incoming administration, Negroponte said the US looked forward to working with Taiwan and the incoming administration of president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on the basis of the Taiwan Relations Act and the three US-China communiques.
“With the inauguration of Ma Ying-jeou on May 20 we will have safely navigated a tense period in cross-strait relations,” he said.
Additional reporting by AFP
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS