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.”
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