Four US lawmakers on Thursday introduced legislation that would enable the Pentagon to cooperate with Taiwan in fortifying its cybersecurity against China.
The bill, called the “Taiwan Cybersecurity Resiliency Act,” would authorize the US Department of Defense to conduct cybersecurity exercises with Taiwan and defend the nation’s military networks and infrastructure.
“We must push back on the Chinese Communist Party’s [CCP] growing aggression, and its attempts to undermine democracy around the world — including through hostile cyber actions,” US Senator Jacky Rosen, one of the bill’s four cosponsors, said in a statement.
Photo: REUTERS
“All too often, we’ve seen Taiwan used as a testing ground for China’s cyberattacks, later used against the United States,” Rosen said, citing 20 million to 40 million Chinese cyberattacks against Taiwan per month in 2019.
The bill’s three other cosponsors are US Senator Mike Rounds, and US representatives Chrissy Houlahan and Mike Gallagher, who chairs the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the US and the Chinese Communist Party.
“This bill helps arm Taiwan to the teeth in the cyberdomain by strengthening Taiwan’s cyberforces and building an even stronger partnership between our two countries,” Gallagher said, adding that Chinese cyberattacks could have “devastating” effects.
Houlahan, who referred to Taiwan as “a close ally and important strategic partner,” said that the nation’s “critical infrastructure resilience is absolutely imperative to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
However, legislation related to US national security is rarely passed as a standalone bill, defense-focused news Web site Breaking Defense said, adding that the bill would most likely be seriously considered later this year “when lawmakers begin drafting the annual defense policy and spending bills.”
Separately, US Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral John Aquilino said that it is Washington’s priority to enhance cybersecurity capabilities in cooperation with US allies in the Indo-Pacific region.
US arms deliveries to Taiwan would not affect Washington’s military support of Ukraine, he said, adding that “the US is the only global force capable of managing multiple threats.”
Meanwhile, a US congressional war game simulating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan showed the need to arm the nation “to the teeth,” Gallagher said.
The exercise showed the US must boost production of long-range missiles and businesses must brace for economic fallout, he said.
The Select Committee conducted the unusual tabletop exercise on Wednesday evening with the Washington-based Center for a New American Security think tank, which showed that resupplying Taiwan would be impossible after a conflict begins.
“We are well within the window of maximum danger for a Chinese Communist Party invasion of Taiwan, and yesterday’s war game stressed the need to take action to deter CCP aggression and arm Taiwan to the teeth before any crisis begins,” Gallagher said in a statement.
The US must clear a US$19 billion weapons backlog to Taiwan, conduct enhanced joint military training and reinforce US troops in the region, he said.
Anxiety about a possible conflict over Taiwan has become a rare bipartisan issue in Washington.
US officials say Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has ordered his military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, but acknowledge that it does not mean China has decided to do so.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the war game.
A person close to the committee outlined for Reuters the war game’s conclusions, which included high US losses if Washington did not shore up basing agreements with regional allies, rapid depletion of long-range missile stockpiles and world markets in “absolute tatters.”
“The business community is not taking the threat of a Taiwan crisis seriously enough,” Gallagher said ahead of the game, adding that such an attitude “verges on dereliction of fiduciary duty.”
Additional reporting by REUTERS
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘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
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not