US lawmakers are urging the US Congress to pass a White House budget request to provide security assistance to allies and partners, including Taiwan.
US President Joe Biden’s administration last month requested emergency supplemental funding for “key national security priorities,” the White House said.
The more than US$105 billion package includes US$61.4 billion in aid for Ukraine, US$14.3 billion for Israel and US$7.4 billion for the Indo-Pacific region, which includes Taiwan, CNN reported.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
US Representative Mike Gallagher, the chair of the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, told CBS’ Face The Nation that he thinks the US Congress would pass the budget.
“We have no choice. We have to pass this,” US Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said on the show.
The two are leading the committee “to act before it’s too late,” considering the growing threat to Taiwan, Gallagher said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) reportedly told Biden in their meeting in San Francisco on the sidelines of the APEC summit last week that peace and stability in the region are less important than solving the Taiwan question, he said.
“No amount of relentless diplomacy will make a difference if we don’t fix the fundamental problem,” which is the imbalance of hard power across the Taiwan Strait and throughout the Indo-Pacific region, he said.
The support offered to Taiwan, Ukraine, Israel and other priorities “are all inextricably linked,” Krishnamoorthi said, adding that “we have to make sure that we send the right message to Xi Jinping.”
A majority of the US public is concerned that a war might break out within 10 years and want their government to prevent it, he said.
The best way to achieve such a goal is “to make sure that we deter aggression by equipping Taiwan with what it needs to prevent aggression” as well as maintaining the highest-level communication channels between Washington and Beijing, he said.
Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) last week told CNN that China’s biggest military buildup in a century “may be just the beginning” and “can only be deterred by massive military power.”
Taiwan would become “Chinese Hawaii” if occupied by Beijing, which could send submarines from eastern Taiwan to target the US’ west coast, he said.
Former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen told ABC’s This Week that the meeting between Biden and Xi made “no progress” on the Taiwan issue, which “is the most significant and most dangerous, near term and long term.”
Xi has been “very aggressive” in his assertion that China would eventually annex Taiwan, but the two leaders failed to agree that such a goal would not be achieved by force, he said.
Meanwhile, regarding Xi’s denial that China has a plan to take military action against Taiwan in 2027 or 2035, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) yesterday said at the legislature in Taipei that the armed forces always prepare for war, while the ministry strives to prevent it.
Regarding Xi urging Biden to stop arming Taiwan, Chiu said that the US selling weapons to Taiwan is a normal interaction rather than an act to arm the nation.
Sending military personnel to the US to inspect and learn from their counterparts is also part of normal exchanges between Taiwan and the US, he said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS