A senior US senator said on Wednesday that US arms sales to Taiwan were hurting closer ties with China and asked US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates what Beijing would have to do for the Pentagon to reconsider the transfers.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein told Gates that Chinese leaders had offered to reposition at least some of their military forces opposite Taiwan. An aide said she was referring to an offer that was made in the past and was no longer on the table.
“There is no current offer from China,” her spokesman said after the Senate hearing.
Feinstein, a Democrat, said the redeployment offer had been raised during “my meeting with some of the leadership.”
She visited China and Taiwan earlier this month.
Feinstein did not spell out any details about the offer, telling Gates: “Perhaps some of this I should discuss with you privately.”
Wang Baodong (王寶東), a Chinese embassy spokesman in Washington, said China’s deployment of “defensive forces within its own borders was for safeguarding its territorial integrity and defending its national security.”
“As to the redeployment, it depends on how the situations are evolving,” he said by e-mail without elaborating.
He was responding to a question about Feinstein’s comments.
Feinstein called US arms sales to Taiwan “a substantial irritant” in relations between Washington and Beijing, and predicted they would remain so in the future.
She asked Gates what “substantial” steps China could take to ease its military posture in the Taiwan Strait in a way that would allow Washington to reconsider future arms sales to Taiwan.
“I think there is an opportunity to consider where we go if this across-the-strait situation is stable,” Gates said.
After US President Barack Obama’s administration notified Congress in January of plans to sell Taiwan up to US$6.4 billion in arms, China broke off military-to-military contacts with the US. Earlier this month, China turned down a proposed fence-mending visit by Gates.
Gates cited as justification for the sales factors including what he called an “extraordinary Chinese deployment of all manner of cruise and ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan on the Chinese side of the strait.”
Feinstein responded: “In my meeting with some of the leadership, it was mentioned that China had offered to redeploy back. Now I understand the word ‘redeploy’ isn’t ‘remove.’ And I understand the nature of what’s there and the number of troops.”
Gates said it was up to Congress and the White House to decide whether to change the way arms are sold to Taiwan.
“The bottom line is the decision on Taiwan arms sales is fundamentally a political decision,” Gates said.
Gates said the US was “very concerned” about China’s growing anti-ship cruise and ballistic missile capabilities.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
RSS