The president of the US-Taiwan Business Council yesterday confirmed a report in a US-based defense magazine that the US State Department had frozen US congressional notifications for new arms sales to Taiwan “until at least spring next year.”
Citing sources in Taipei and Washington, Defense News on Monday wrote that the suspension was the direct result of “effective lobbying by Beijing.”
“The Chinese are ramping up the pressure and engaging us in disinformation to complicate our review, particularly in the context of a vulnerable process for arms sales,” a defense analyst in Washington told the magazine.
US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers told the Taipei Times that so far, three notifications had been frozen, with more expected to “stack up” as the year progresses. He said the freeze has been in force for “at least a month,” but would not confirm the content of the notifications.
A multibillion-dollar program to upgrade Taiwan’s aging F-16A/B fighter aircraft is not included in the freeze, as the program has yet to enter the notification stage. However, as Beijing regards this program as an arms sale, Hammond-Chambers said he expected notification, which is months away, to face similar pressure. He said he was not aware of other notifications scheduled for this year.
Plans to acquire more advanced F-16C/Ds — which have become a “red line” for Beijing — have been on hold since 2006.
“Washington is as vulnerable as it’s ever been to pressure by Beijing since the switch in diplomatic relations in 1979, and this has raised Beijing’s willingness to pressure Washington,” he told the Taipei Times.
With the US hosting the APEC summit next year, contact between US and Chinese officials will increase and create more opportunities for China to exert pressure on the administration of US President Barack Obama, he said.
The stacking-up of notifications, which would result in multibillion-dollar packages, he said, also compels Beijing to turn up the rhetoric.
“I have never seen the US have so little ambition in the Taiwan Strait,” he said, adding that it was essential to have balance in the strait, with Taipei engaging both Beijing and Washington in a “sustainable” fashion.
If that triangular relationship gets out of balance, it becomes “inherently destabilizing in the long term,” he said, alluding to Washington’s failure to counterbalance the just-signed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and China.
While the retaliatory risks from Beijing remain ambiguous and uncertain, Washington is taking them seriously and as a consequence arms sales have been frozen for this year, Hammond-Chambers said.
“It is difficult to conceive the Obama administration releasing anything this year,” he said.
Asked for comment yesterday, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said he had no information on the matter and would ask government agencies to look into it. Wu said Taipei would proceed with planned procurement requests and continue to negotiate with the US.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) said by telephone that he had yet to read the report and would look into the matter.
The American Institution in Taiwan was unavailable for comment.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
DETERRENCE: Along with US$500 million in military aid and up to US$2 billion in loans and loan guarantees, the bill would allocate US$400 million to countering PRC influence The US House of Representatives on Friday approved an appropriations bill for fiscal year 2025 that includes US$500 million in military aid for Taiwan. The legislation, which authorizes funding for the US Department of State, US foreign operations and related programs for next year, passed 212-200 in the Republican-led House. The bill stipulates that the US would provide no less than US$500 million in foreign military financing for Taiwan to enhance deterrence across the Taiwan Strait, and offer Taipei up to US$2 billion in loans and loan guarantees for the same purpose. The funding would be made available under the US’ Foreign Military