An arms deal with Taipei approved by Washington was made based on US law and is intended to help boost Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, US Department of State spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said on Tuesday.
“Well, I think everybody here in this room, especially all of you from ... the Asian bureaus, are aware of the Taiwan Relations Act. The State Department did notify on the arms sale today,” Ortagus told a routine news conference.
“Our interest in Taiwan, especially as it relates to these military sales, is to promote peace and stability across the straits [sic], across the region and ... there’s no change, of course, in our long-standing ‘one China’ policy. That’s based on the Three Joint Communiques [and] the Taiwan Relations Act,” she said.
“So I don’t see our notification here as anything other than complying with the Taiwan Relations Act. The law specifically, of course, requires ... us to help Taiwan maintain their defense, self-sufficient defense capabilities, but our ‘one China’ policy remains the same, and so there’s no new policy announcements for today,” she added.
Ortagus was referring to the US$2.22 billion arms deal approved by the department on Monday, which includes 108 M1A2T Abrams tanks and relevant equipment and support; 250 FIM-92F Stinger surface-to-air missiles and related equipment; and four Stinger “fly-to-buy” missiles.
However, the deal does not include 66 F-16V jets that the Ministry of National Defense requested to purchase on Feb. 27.
Chieh Chung (揭仲), a senior assistant research fellow at the Taipei-based National Policy Foundation, said that the deal puts pressure on China as it expands its economic and strategic footprint in the Indo-Pacific region.
The move could also be seen as a response by Washington to promote its free and open Indo-Pacific strategy, Chung said.
It is the most substantive arms deal since US President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, following sales announced on June 29, 2017, on Sept. 24 last year and on April 15 that included training and maintenance/logistics support, as well as torpedoes and missiles.
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