Two US lawmakers on Saturday said they discussed the possibility of bringing Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system into Taiwan with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), to help Taipei’s deterrence against China.
US Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and US Representative French Hill, among a congressional delegation that visited Taipei last week, said it was one of the “constructive takeaways” in their talks with Tsai on Saturday.
The Presidential Office said it had no comment on Starlink, but issued a statement saying that McCaul and his delegation met with Taiwanese leaders from various industries including semiconductors and aerospace technology.
Photo: AFP
The Republican lawmakers did not say if they had discussed the idea with Musk or Starlink, the fleet operated and launched by the billionaire’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp, which has more than 3,000 satellites in orbit.
Last year, Musk angered Taipei by proposing his own solution for the tensions between China and Taiwan — handing some control to Beijing.
He also said then that Beijing had sought assurances that he would not offer Starlink’s Internet service in China.
“Communist China is very good at what we call intelligence surveillance reconnaissance,” McCaul told reporters on Saturday. “They have great eyes on — they can see everything in the Pacific. In some cases, better than we can in this area. Taiwan has none of that.”
Taiwan would benefit from Starlink’s satellites because of vulnerabilities in its undersea cables, Hill said, adding that it would have to make a national security exception for the company to operate.
The visit by the US congressional delegation, which arrived on Thursday and departed on Saturday, was part of a larger visit to the Indo-Pacific region, the American Institute in Taiwan said.
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