Bolstering Taiwan’s defenses is an urgent task and essential to deterring the threat of invasion by China, the Pentagon’s top official for Asia said on Wednesday, adding that US partners were stepping up their military presence in the region.
Tensions between Taiwan and China have escalated in the past few months as Beijing increases the pressure with repeated air missions over the Taiwan Strait.
“Without question, bolstering Taiwan’s self-defenses is an urgent task and an essential feature of deterrence,” US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner told a US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing.
Photo: AFP
Ratner added that China’s air and maritime campaigns around Taiwan were “intentionally provocative” and increased the likelihood of miscalculation between armed forces in the Indo-Pacific region.
“They put the prosperity and security of the region at risk, and are part of a pattern of PRC military coercion and aggression against other US allies and partners in the region, including India, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam,” Ratner said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
“We are seeing countries stepping up their military presence in the region and their willingness to support deterrence in a way that we haven’t before,” he said, mentioning joint military activities with Canada, Britain and Japan.
Asked what he saw as the greatest risk to Taiwan, Ratner said: “The China challenge is a today problem, a tomorrow problem, a 2027 problem, a 2030 problem, a 2040 problem and beyond.’
“I don’t think there is a date we ought to pick on the calendar and we ought to make sure that we’re sustaining deterrence from today,” he added.
US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink, who was also at the committee hearing, said that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s “bullying behavior” directed at Taiwan was concerning and destabilizing, and risked undermining peace and stability in the region.
Kritenbrink said he believed these actions posed a risk of miscalculation that could harm the global economy.
“In response, the US has and will continue to make available to Taiwan the defense articles and services necessary to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act,” he said, citing as an example the more than US$32 billion in arms sold to Taiwan since 2009.
Arms sales alone are not enough, as the US also encourages Taiwan to prioritize asymmetric capabilities that complicate China’s planning and coercion, he said.
The US is “firmly committed to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, where we have an enduring national interest,” he said, adding that Washington would continue to oppose unilateral changes to the “status quo.”
Additional reporting by CNA
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