A memorandum from US Air Mobility Command Commander General Mike Minihan, leaked on social media on Friday, warns of a US military conflict with China over Taiwan as soon as 2025. His is not the first such warning. Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) told lawmakers in June 2021 that China might attempt an invasion in 2025, and US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday in October last year said that an invasion might occur as early as next year.
Minihan’s comments, which Agence France-Presse said were confirmed by the Pentagon, present an opening for Taipei to press Washington to step up its defense measures. While nobody wants war, and Minihan said the main goal would be to deter a conflict, the comments from such a high-ranking US military official show that the Pentagon is taking the threat of war in the Taiwan Strait seriously, and that it is preparing for possible US involvement in such a conflict.
On Wednesday, the Taipei Times reported that the US government is appropriating funding to facilitate Taiwan’s participation in its International Military Education & Training (IMET) program. Taiwan’s participation in the program, which aims to bolster regional defense capabilities by providing training and education to military personnel around the world, is mentioned in the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2023.
“IMET has been proven to be an effective means to strengthen the military and international alliances, which are crucial for the US to reach its national security goals,” the American Institute in Taiwan told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times).
If there truly is concern among high-ranking US military personnel about a Chinese attack on Taiwan in the next few years, then Taipei and Washington must expedite such initiatives, as well as Taiwan’s procurement of US weapons.
In October last year, the Nikkei Shimbun reported that the US government was considering producing weapons with Taiwan. Such a move would help facilitate weapons delivery and reduce funding concerns. The Nikkei report said that the plan could be implemented through a technology transfer that would allow some US arms to be manufactured in Taiwan. That is not improbable, given that a previous technology transfer in 2020 allowed Taiwan to maintain its F-16 jets domestically.
The US should seek to help Taiwan improve its military self-reliance — something President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been touting since she took office — or station a contingent of US troops in the nation. If a deployment is not possible, US naval vessels could make regular ports of call in Taiwan. US lawmakers in 2017 proposed such visits in a version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. China might object, but it would hardly have grounds to do so, as it has not allowed visits by the US Navy to Chinese ports over the past several years amid growing tensions between the countries.
There is growing bipartisan support for Taiwan in the US Congress, with several official delegations visiting the nation over the past year. Most notably, then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi visited in August last year in defiance of warnings from the Chinese government. On Monday last week, Punchbowl News reported that US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy is planning to visit Taiwan in the coming months, despite renewed warnings from Beijing. Last week, a committee led by US Representative Mike Gallagher launched a petition calling for the US to formally recognize Taiwan as an independent nation.
Given the US’ support for Taiwan, as well as continued warnings among US military officials and think tanks about an impending Chinese invasion, the Tsai administration should continue to press Washington to ensure Taiwan’s security.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the
Many local news media last week reported that COVID-19 is back, citing doctors’ observations and the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) statistics. The CDC said that cases would peak this month and urged people to take preventive measures. Although COVID-19 has never been eliminated, it has become more manageable, and restrictions were dropped, enabling people to return to their normal way of life due to decreasing hospitalizations and deaths. In Taiwan, mandatory reporting of confirmed cases and home isolation ended in March last year, while the mask mandate at hospitals and healthcare facilities stopped in May. However, the CDC last week said the number