The US’ repeated calls for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait differences means that it would increase arms sales to Taiwan if there is no peace across the Taiwan Strait, as arms sales and peace are linked, an academic said in Taipei yesterday.
Prospect Foundation deputy executive director Song Cheng-en (宋承恩) made the remarks at a symposium titled “The 45th Anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act — Opportunities and Challenges in Taiwan-US Relations” held by the Taiwan New Century Foundation and the Taiwanese Society of International Law.
Song said the US’ Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) is expanding its previous framework of maintaining peace and stability in the western Pacific to the Indo-Pacific, ensuring that Taiwan has sufficient self-defense capacity and that the country’s future is determined peacefully — even making it a precondition for a US-China relationship.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The US has reiterated this condition more frequently in the past few years, which means that if China takes a more hostile attitude toward Taiwan, the Three Joint Communiques between the US and China might become invalid, he added.
The US’ priority is the TRA, followed by the Three Joint Communiques and the “six assurances,” so the communiques cannot override the TRA, Song said.
It also explains the dense war clouds hanging over the Taiwan Strait and why many countries are concerned over China’s use of force against Taiwan, he said.
Taiwan is a part of the US’ response to China’s aggressive efforts to change the international order, he added
The “six assurances” have been implicitly mentioned before, without written text, but US President Joe Biden’s administration has mentioned it more than once in statements, and this is “something that Beijing hates the most,” Academia Sinica research fellow Lin Cheng-yi (林正義) said.
The principles behind selling weapons to Taiwan have also changed, Lin said.
In 2022, the US Senate reviewed a draft of the Taiwan Policy Act, which proposed to allow sales of arms that are not only defensive in nature, but to also allow sales of “arms conducive to deterring acts of aggression by the People’s Liberation Army [PLA].”
Although the act has not been signed into effect, much of its content was later included in other laws or stated as policy directions, Lin said.
If the TRA needs to be amended, allowing sales of weapons that can deter PLA aggression would be one option, Lin added.
Another trend is defense cooperation and planning, Song said.
The US would do its best to arm Taiwan by allowing Taiwanese troops to be trained in the US or by sending US specialists to train Taiwanese soldiers, Song added.
The Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act, which is built on the TRA, states that the US should enhance Taiwan’s national defense by arming the nation to become a “porcupine” and helping it to thoroughly reform its defense system.
The US would also establish multilateral partnerships in the Indo-Pacific and a US-Japan-Philippines defense cooperation could be an opportunity for Taiwan to establish links with other countries, Song said.
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