Both houses of the US Congress have made progress on their respective drafts of an annual defense policy bill — the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — that includes provisions to strengthen defense-related engagement with Taiwan.
In the US Senate, the Armed Services Committee on Thursday said that it had passed a draft version of the NDAA for fiscal year 2023 in a bipartisan 23-3 vote and had sent it to the full Senate for consideration.
A summary released by the committee said that the draft bill would require engagement with Taiwanese officials to develop and implement a multi-year plan for the acquisition of appropriate defensive capabilities.
Photo: Reuters
The bill would also mandate engagement with Taiwan on a series of combined training, exercises and planning activities, the committee said.
The US’ policy would be to maintain its armed forces “to deny a fait accompli against Taiwan,” to deter China from using military force to unilaterally change the “status quo” with Taiwan, the committee said in the summary.
The draft Senate bill calls for US$857.6 billion of defense spending, an increase of US$44 billion over the US$813.3 billion requested by US President Joe Biden.
That is an increase of US$87 billion from last year’s defense budget.
Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee on Monday released the full text of its draft version of the NDAA, which is still in the committee’s markup process and is to be reviewed today.
In its current form, the House’s draft bill largely hews to the final version of the NDAA that was signed into law last year, with the exception of an expanded “sense of Congress” section on US-Taiwan defense relations.
While last year’s version of the NDAA committed to supporting Taiwan’s acquisition of defense articles with an emphasis on asymmetric capabilities, this year’s draft specifies that this might include “anti-ship, coastal defense, anti-armor, air defense [and] undersea warfare” capabilities.
The section also contains a new phrase that says the US should be “committed to the defense of a free and open society in the face of aggressive efforts by [China] to curtail or influence the free exercise of rights or democratic franchise.”
The House draft would authorize a lower amount of US$802.4 billion of defense spending.
Typically, both houses of Congress pass their own versions of the NDAA and negotiate a reconciliation of the bill to be signed into law — a process that last year was not completed until December.
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
Taiwanese shares yesterday posted a record daily gain of more than 1,700 points to close above 40,000 points for the first time, led by large-cap semiconductor stocks such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) amid optimism about the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The TAIEX ended up 1,778.51 points, or 4.57 percent, at 40,705.14 after moving between 39,228.39 and 40,755.52, while the New Taiwan dollar closed up NT$0.038 at NT$31.610 per US dollar, ending three consecutive sessions of declines. Turnover on the main board totaled NT$1.007 trillion (US$31.9 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$66.98 billion
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
NON-INTERFERENCE: The US called Taiwan a trusted and capable partner, while an African Union leader urged nations to reflect on respect for sovereign choices Taiwan is a “trusted and capable” partner of the US and Taipei’s global relationships, including with Eswatini, provide significant benefits, the US Department of State said of President William Lai’s (賴清德) trip to the southern African kingdom. Lai arrived in the former Swaziland on Saturday on a surprise visit after a planned trip last month was canceled when Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar denied overflight permission for his aircraft due to Chinese pressure. “Taiwan is a trusted and capable partner of the United States and many others, and its relationships around the world provide significant benefits to the citizens of those countries,
RSS