Taiwan and the US are improving resilience and innovating operational concepts to maintain the capability to deter Beijing from attacking across the Taiwan Strait, a senior US defense official said on Wednesday.
Keeping Taiwan-US deterrence capabilities strong through improving bilateral cooperation has been a constant task for the US government, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
A war in the Taiwan Strait is not imminent or inevitable, he said, citing US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Photo: screen grab from the American Enterprise Institute’s YouTube channel
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has made strides in developing a new concept of operations needed to overcome the unique operational challenges posed by the western Pacific region, Ratner said.
The US military is enhancing the dispersion, mobility, resilience and lethality of its forces in the region to deter China from acts of aggression, he said.
The global implications of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are underscored in private and public diplomatic interactions almost every day, he said, adding that more countries are emphasizing to the US the importance of this.
Taiwan can significantly boost deterrence by improving the resilience of its armed forces and society, Ratner said.
Efforts by the Taiwanese armed forces to enhance deterrence via refining operational planning, developing capabilities and conducting exercises have been heartening to the US, he said, adding that developments are positive across the board.
The consistent policy of the US is to maintain the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait and oppose any unilateral attempts to change it, he said.
Ratner is a frequent contributor to the American Enterprise Institute and a policy veteran at the US Department of Defense.
Separately, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink told the event that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to emphasize Washington’s concern with Beijing’s escalating use of coercion against Taiwan.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS