The US Senate Committee on Armed Services on Thursday released an executive summary of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025 with a provision asking the Pentagon to establish a “regional contingency stockpile” of arms for Taiwan.
The committee voted 22-3 to advance the US$923.3 billion bill to the Senate floor, hours before a competing version passed the US House of Representatives.
The US Department of Defense would be required to ensure Taiwan is aligned with the US National Defense Industrial Strategy to increase global defense production, secure supply chains and meet Taiwan’s defense needs, the executive summary says.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Under a section on “countering Chinese aggression,” the summary says the Pentagon must prepare a report on the implications of Beijing-Moscow military cooperation on the US’ national security and propose a transregional strategy to reveal the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) “malign activities.”
Each “geographic combatant command” of the US armed forces would be required “to designate a lead component to coordinate transregional efforts to counter malign activities by the PLA,” it says.
The bill would also create an “expanded competition office” to counter “gray zone” economic activities by adversaries, and authorize an additional US$100 million budget for the US Indo-Pacific Command Joint Training Team, the summary says.
The US House of Representatives at noon on Friday passed its version of the NDAA, requiring the Pentagon to report on efforts to bolster defense industry cooperation with Taiwan.
The US House bill would also require the US Federal Communications Commission to ban uncrewed aerial vehicles produced by China’s Shenzhen DJI Science and Technology Co (大疆創新) from US skies.
The House and Senate are pushing to ban drones from China-based companies DJI and Autel Robotics Co (道通智能航空技) after reports linked the two companies to the Chinese Communist Party and the PLA, the Hill newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The US Department of Defense, which is prevented by legislation from buying Chinese drones, previously expressed concerns over the companies, it said.
The Senate committee and the House would next negotiate and pass a final version of the NDAA, which would be sent to the president to be signed into law.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS