US efforts to support Ukraine with military equipment are “in no way” obstructing its plans to provide arms for Taiwan, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said on Thursday at a security forum.
“The US supporting Ukraine is in no way negatively affecting our ability to provide [or] fulfill foreign military sales cases, or otherwise support Taiwan,” Hicks said during a talk at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington.
Since late February, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Washington has provided Kyiv with FGM-148 Javelin portable anti-tank missiles and FIM-92 Stinger portable surface-to-air missiles, items that the US has also sold to Taiwan, but has reportedly delayed shipping.
Photo: AFP
The delivery of those items to Taiwan was “totally unrelated” to US provisions to Ukraine, which are drawn from US stockpiles, Hicks said.
By analogy, Hicks said the US had sent “used cars” to Ukraine, but Taiwan would receive “a brand new car.”
Asked whether it would be possible for Taiwanese troops to receive US military training at home, as was done in Ukraine in 2016 after the Russian annexation of Crimea, Hicks did not provide a direct answer.
“I think there’s a lot [Taiwan’s military] can do themselves and a lot of partnerships that they have available to them,” Hicks said. “You don’t have to be in [the] country to do a lot of that kind of training.”
“Taiwan needs to put its self-defense front and center,” Hicks said, adding that the best way to deter China from military aggression against Taiwan relies on the will of the people in Taiwan to defend the nation.
Ukraine’s response to Russia’s invasion has demonstrated “the will of a people combined with [the] capability to stall or even stop a campaign of oppression,” she said.
Hicks spoke of what Taiwan should do to strengthen its self-defense capabilities, including improving its noncommissioned officer corps, imposing longer compulsory military service and focusing on asymmetric systems.
US National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell at a separate talk said that Washington and its partners in the Indo-Pacific region have a “strong, overriding interest in the maintenance of peace and stability” in the Taiwan Strait.
Regarding US-China relations, Campbell said that people would see a resumption of more practical and predictable “great power diplomacy” between the two countries in the next few months, a development he said would be “reassuring” to the region.
Campbell said his assessment considered that China is facing challenges at home and abroad.
China’s ambitious engagements with other countries in the region have “backfired,” he said, citing its disputes with Japan over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — called the Senkaku Islands by Japan — and its border conflict with India.
Beijing’s “zero COVID” policy had slowed the country’s economy and caused public anger, contributing to its domestic problems, he added.
“All of that suggests to me that the last thing that the Chinese need right now is an openly hostile relationship with the United States,” Campbell said. “They want a degree of predictability and stability, and we seek that as well.”
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS