The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday thanked US lawmakers who have expressed concern for Taiwan’s security, after a US lawmaker reportedly asked the Pentagon to create an “arsenal of deterrence” for Taiwan.
According to Fox News Digital, US Representative Mike Gallagher wrote a letter to US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks saying that the US “finds itself needing to rebuild a different kind of arsenal — an arsenal of deterrence,” and demanding a classified briefing from the Pentagon on ways to aid Taiwan’s defense.
The arsenal should be able to be “promptly” delivered to Taiwan, because “rearming Taiwan after hostilities have commenced, as we did with Ukraine, would be significantly more difficult, if not infeasible,” Fox News cited Gallagher as saying.
Photo: AFP
“In December 1940, while we were still at peace, [former US] president Franklin D. Roosevelt famously called on the United States to be the ‘great arsenal of democracy,’” he wrote.
Gallagher, who serves as chair of the US House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the US and the Chinese Communist Party, said that Roosevelt’s call to provide a “lifeline” to allies during World War II also helped to “arm our own military in advance of and through the years of heavy conflict and ultimately win the war,” he wrote.
Gallagher said that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has ordered the Chinese military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027 and, to prevent war, the US must “quickly remake an arsenal of deterrence that can arm Taiwan as well as our own forces to allow us to prevail in any conflict in the Indo-Pacific.”
Ministry spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) also thanked the US for continuing to observe the Taiwan Relations Act and the “six assurances.”
Taiwan would continue to strengthen its self-defense capabilities in light of continued military expansionism and provocation from China to safeguard public welfare, freedom and its democratic way of life, he said.
Separately, US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral John Aquilino on Monday said that the US military is aware that China is increasing its provocative acts near the Taiwan Strait ahead of next month’s elections, and called for Beijing to curb its provocative behavior and devote itself to resolving the issue peacefully.
Aquilino said the US had asked to speak with Chinese People’s Liberation Army theater commanders for a third consecutive year, but China rebuffed the request through its embassy, citing “unresolved technical issues for a telephone conference.”
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