Making Taiwan a “very difficult objective to take” is the nation’s best defense strategy, and the US can help as it has with Ukraine against Russia, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley said on Thursday.
“Taiwan is a defensible island. We just need to help the Taiwanese to defend it a little bit better,” Milley told a US Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing.
He was responding to a question from US Senator Rick Scott on whether proposed military spending for next year was enough to deter a Chinese military attack.
Photo: AFP
Milley said that “the best defense of Taiwan is done by the Taiwanese” with US support, and that the key to deterrence was to “make sure that the Chinese know that if they were to attack Taiwan, it’s a very, very difficult objective to take.”
China has observed several lessons in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the challenges of conducting an amphibious or air assault on Taiwan with its millions of people, Milley said.
In his written testimony, Milley said that China is continuing to develop significant nuclear, space, cyber, land, air and maritime military capabilities, and that “they are working every day to close the technology gap with the US and its allies.”
“In short, they remain intent on fundamentally revising the global international order in their favor by mid-century, they intend to be a military peer of the US by 2035 and they intend to develop the military capabilities to seize Taiwan by 2027,” Milley said.
Also responding to a question asked by Scott, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin defended the Pentagon’s spending proposal, saying its focus on investments in technology, cyberspace and undersea capabilities would help with deterring China and confronting the existing challenge of Russia.
He said the US considered China to be “a now and forever problem in terms of a challenge” that would evolve.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-Wong tomorrow, which it said would possibly make landfall near central Taiwan. As of 2am yesterday, Fung-Wong was about 1,760km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving west-northwest at 26kph. It is forecast to reach Luzon in the northern Philippines by tomorrow, the CWA said. After entering the South China Sea, Typhoon Fung-Wong is likely to turn northward toward Taiwan, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張峻堯) said, adding that it would likely make landfall near central Taiwan. The CWA expects to issue a land
Taiwan’s exports soared to an all-time high of US$61.8 billion last month, surging 49.7 percent from a year earlier, as the global frenzy for artificial intelligence (AI) applications and new consumer electronics powered shipments of high-tech goods, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. It was the first time exports had exceeded the US$60 billion mark, fueled by the global boom in AI development that has significantly boosted Taiwanese companies across the international supply chain, Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) told a media briefing. “There is a consensus among major AI players that the upcycle is still in its early stage,”
‘SECRETS’: While saying China would not attack during his presidency, Donald Trump declined to say how Washington would respond if Beijing were to take military action US President Donald Trump said that China would not take military action against Taiwan while he is president, as the Chinese leaders “know the consequences.” Trump made the statement during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired on Sunday, a few days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea. “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘we would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in the interview. However, he repeatedly declined to say exactly how Washington would respond in
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday that China using armed force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, allowing the country to mobilize the Japanese armed forces under its security laws. Takaichi made the remarks during a parliamentary session yesterday while responding to a question about whether a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade would qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. "If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival- threatening
RSS