Taiwan is concerned about delays in the delivery of weapons by Washington, US Representative Mike Gallagher told US media following a visit to Taiwan.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) yesterday said Gallagher met with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Vice President William Lai (賴清德) and National Security Council Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) during his visit from Friday last week to Monday.
Gallagher chairs the US House of Representatives Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
Photo: AP
Presidential Office spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka confirmed Tsai’s meeting with Gallagher, adding that Taiwan welcomes visits by international friends, and hopes to work with them to safeguard democracy, freedom and peace.
In an interview with the Washington Post published on Wednesday, Gallagher said every Taiwanese official he met said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made Taiwan realize the need to acquire and stockpile advanced weapons.
Taiwanese leaders are concerned about delays in arms deliveries from the US, he said.
“I think that’s unacceptable,” Gallagher said.
Taiwan faces a US$19 billion arms backlog, including crucial weapons such as Harpoon anti-ship missiles and F-16 jets, the Post reported, quoting one congressional aide as saying that Harpoons “aren’t likely to begin arriving in real numbers until 2027 at the earliest.”
Gallagher said he hopes the committee can help push the US to “arm Taiwan to the teeth,” as it is “our best chance of preventing an invasion of Taiwan, and of essentially preventing World War III.”
Taiwan is “doing everything we could ask of them” to boost its own defense, such as increasing defense spending to 2.4 percent of its GDP, he said.
Gallagher reiterated similar views in an opinion piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, saying the US “must do a better job of countering the [Chinese] Communist Party’s malign influence operations in Taiwan,” including clearing the backlog of military sales.
“Repression is spreading outward all around the periphery of China — Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong. The darkness presses beyond China’s borders, slithering into multinational institutions, over the Internet, throughout the global financial system. Against the darkness stands a candle that burns freely, fiercely, improbably in opposition: Taiwan,” he added.
Speaking about US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s plan to visit Taipei, Gallagher said he was not aware of any active plans for the trip, but added: “If he wants to go, he certainly can.”
Gallagher said he plans to hold a select committee hearing in Taiwan by summer and report the findings to McCarthy, who can then make his plans with better information.
Gallagher and US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries might visit Taiwan after the presidential election early next year, he added.
The foreign ministry has not received information about a possible hearing or McCarthy’s visit to Taiwan, but welcomes visits by US lawmakers, Liu said, adding that the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US would keep in close contact with the US Congress about related plans.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the