US Representative Mike Gallagher on Friday introduced a bill aimed at increasing Taiwan’s asymmetric defense capabilities to protect against China’s military aggression.
Under the proposed arm Taiwan act of 2021, the US would enhance Taiwan’s defenses against a Chinese invasion by allocating US$3 billion every year for a “Taiwan Security Assistance Initiative,” Gallagher said in a statement.
The act would make Taiwan’s progress in preparing its military and fielding weapons required to deter an attack by China a condition for conventional arms sales to the nation, he said.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
“General Secretary [Chinese President] Xi Jinping (習近平) has made unification of Taiwan with the mainland, by force if necessary, a key part of his legacy, and the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is only growing more aggressive watching the [US President Joe] Biden Administration’s weakness in Afghanistan, Ukraine and Iran,” Gallagher said.
The US “Congress needs to step up to restore deterrence before it is too late. I am proud to join [US] Senator [Josh] Hawley in introducing the arm Taiwan act to provide Taiwan with the necessary resources and weapons to defeat an attempted invasion,” Gallagher added.
In November last year, Hawley introduced an identical bill.
Under the act, the US secretary of defense would be tasked with establishing the Taiwan Security Assistance Initiative to accelerate the nation’s deployment of asymmetric defense capabilities necessary to delay, degrade and deny a Chinese invasion.
The act would authorize the US Department of Defense to appropriate US$3 billion each fiscal year from next year through 2027 to assist Taiwan.
Funding would be conditional on the annual certification that Taiwan was matching US investments in asymmetric defenses, increasing defense spending, acquiring asymmetric defense capabilities as quickly as possible and implementing defense reforms, especially with regard to reserve forces, Gallagher said.
“If the People’s Republic of China were to invade and seize control of Taiwan, it would deal a severe blow to United States interests by destroying one of the world’s leading democracies, casting doubt on the ability and resolve of the United States to uphold its security commitments; incentivizing other countries in the Indo-Pacific region to bandwagon with the People’s Republic of China; and facilitating the formation of a regional order dominated by the People’s Republic of China,” the bill reads.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching