US Senator John Cornyn on Wednesday said he did not think US President Barack Obama’s administration had fully observed the nation’s commitment to providing Taiwan with an efficient weapons system to meet its defense needs.
In an interview with the Central News Agency, the Republican senator said although he had tried hard to persuade the US administration to sell F-16s to Taiwan, he did not think it had completely fulfilled the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act.
“We are looking for the opportunity to provide those airplanes to Taiwan. We will use every tool. We are still working on, trying to come up with, that strategy,” said Cornyn, who sits on the Senate’s Finance, Judiciary, Armed Services and Budget committees.
He said the US administration has made “bad decisions” in terms of arms sales to Taiwan, and “also made our allies believe that the US is not reliable.”
“The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act requires the US government to provide defense weaponry to Taiwan, our ally and friend. I do not believe that we remember that,” he said.
“I think we need a strategy to help our friends and allies to protect themselves,” Cornyn said.
He said the US does not want to see a destruction of its security umbrella in the region, with other countries deciding that they need nuclear weapons.
In an address on Wednesday at the Hudson Institute in Washington, titled “Defending Defense,” Cornyn stressed the importance of the US maintaining its defense budget.
“By cutting defense spending, we may be endangering our national security,” he said. “The defense strategy should drive defense spending, not the other way around.”
A US “super-committee” is expected to issue recommendations soon for trimming federal spending, which are seen likely to include cuts in the Pentagon’s budget.
“The questions before us are stark but simple: What are the threats to America’s peace and prosperity and to the peace and prosperity of other free peoples?” Cornyn asked.
“What’s America’s strategy to meet those threats?” he added.
Although other nations are facing economic and fiscal challenges similar to those of the US, they are making the investments in military capabilities they think they need, he said.
“China still has hundreds of millions of people in poverty, yet it’s made huge investments to upgrade its military forces. Iran has been willing to endure years of economic sanctions in order to pursue its nuclear weapons program,” he said.
“So how do I suggest that we proceed? I say: Let’s get the strategy right first,” Cornyn said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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