Taiwan is a priority partner for the US in the joint production of defense equipment, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said.
Greene made the remarks in an interview with Japanese public broadcaster NHK World, published on Oct. 25.
Asked about remarks made by former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that Taiwan should spend 10 percent of its GDP on defense, Green said: “I don’t think we’ve done an evaluation on how much [Taiwan] can spend."
Photo: Screen grab from NHK World’s YouTube channel
“There are many areas that I think need to be invested in and I think we’re quite pleased that the Lai [President William Lai (賴清德)] administration is not only implementing defense reform and not only increasing the spending levels on defense, but also is investing in these areas of broader resilience and security,” he added.
The government has proposed an 8 percent increase from last year’s defense budget and also invested in the broader “whole-of-society resilience,” including energy security, cyber security and telecommunications resilience, he added.
Asked to elaborate on his previous remarks that he hopes Taiwan would participate in the joint production of defense equipment with other countries, Greene said: “Taiwan has quite an advanced defense industrial base already” and the US is “looking at a variety of partners around the world — especially countries like Japan where we have long-time defense-industrial relationships.”
Aside from opportunities in traditional defense industries, there are also opportunities given the increasing application of civilian technologies for defense purposes, such as in drones or integrating advanced microchips into defense systems, he added.
“And in all of these areas, given Taiwan’s very strong industrial base, very strong technology base, we see Taiwan is obviously a priority partner,” he said. “I expect to see those discussions to continue on and opportunities to continue to manifest themselves in the future.”
Asked about the importance of joint production of defense equipment and lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war, the AIT director said: “I think one of the lessons that we’ve learned is the need to make sure that the equipment we produce is interoperable or even interchangeable. So if there is a need to send equipment in an emergency to a partner, that equipment could be utilized.”
Regarding China’s “Joint Sword 2024-B” military drills around Taiwan on Oct. 14, Greene cited how it was the first time China conducted a military exercise in response to a Double Ten National Day presidential address.
“We believe that the address President Lai delivered on 10/10 was very routine, very normal, covered themes that we’ve seen in previous addresses by his predecessors,” he said.
“We were very concerned by the fact that China chose to take advantage of that opportunity to conduct an exercise which we believe undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” he added.
Asked, “If China were to invade Taiwan today, would Taiwan be able to repel the Chinese forces?” Greene said he would not get into any hypotheticals, but said that the US was impressed with the reforms Lai and his predecessor have implemented, including the reinstatement of one-year conscription.
The US is also impressed with Lai’s focus on the whole of society’s resilience and we believe all these efforts contribute to maintaining that deterrence, he said.
The US is also working closely with key allies and partners to build broader deterrent capabilities in the Pacific region, he added.
Additional reporting by Lee I-chia
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