US lawmakers are urging the US Congress to pass a White House budget request to provide security assistance to allies and partners, including Taiwan.
US President Joe Biden’s administration last month requested emergency supplemental funding for “key national security priorities,” the White House said.
The more than US$105 billion package includes US$61.4 billion in aid for Ukraine, US$14.3 billion for Israel and US$7.4 billion for the Indo-Pacific region, which includes Taiwan, CNN reported.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
US Representative Mike Gallagher, the chair of the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, told CBS’ Face The Nation that he thinks the US Congress would pass the budget.
“We have no choice. We have to pass this,” US Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said on the show.
The two are leading the committee “to act before it’s too late,” considering the growing threat to Taiwan, Gallagher said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) reportedly told Biden in their meeting in San Francisco on the sidelines of the APEC summit last week that peace and stability in the region are less important than solving the Taiwan question, he said.
“No amount of relentless diplomacy will make a difference if we don’t fix the fundamental problem,” which is the imbalance of hard power across the Taiwan Strait and throughout the Indo-Pacific region, he said.
The support offered to Taiwan, Ukraine, Israel and other priorities “are all inextricably linked,” Krishnamoorthi said, adding that “we have to make sure that we send the right message to Xi Jinping.”
A majority of the US public is concerned that a war might break out within 10 years and want their government to prevent it, he said.
The best way to achieve such a goal is “to make sure that we deter aggression by equipping Taiwan with what it needs to prevent aggression” as well as maintaining the highest-level communication channels between Washington and Beijing, he said.
Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) last week told CNN that China’s biggest military buildup in a century “may be just the beginning” and “can only be deterred by massive military power.”
Taiwan would become “Chinese Hawaii” if occupied by Beijing, which could send submarines from eastern Taiwan to target the US’ west coast, he said.
Former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen told ABC’s This Week that the meeting between Biden and Xi made “no progress” on the Taiwan issue, which “is the most significant and most dangerous, near term and long term.”
Xi has been “very aggressive” in his assertion that China would eventually annex Taiwan, but the two leaders failed to agree that such a goal would not be achieved by force, he said.
Meanwhile, regarding Xi’s denial that China has a plan to take military action against Taiwan in 2027 or 2035, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) yesterday said at the legislature in Taipei that the armed forces always prepare for war, while the ministry strives to prevent it.
Regarding Xi urging Biden to stop arming Taiwan, Chiu said that the US selling weapons to Taiwan is a normal interaction rather than an act to arm the nation.
Sending military personnel to the US to inspect and learn from their counterparts is also part of normal exchanges between Taiwan and the US, he said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
‘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
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
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
RSS