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.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
RSS