Taiwan and the US are to focus on cross-strait issues and US arms sales at the Monterey Talks in Washington next month, people familiar with the matter said yesterday.
Department of Strategic Planning Director Lee Shi-chiang (李世強) and National Security Council officials are to lead a delegation to participate in the talks, the sources said.
The focus of the talks would be US arms sales to Taipei and China’s increasingly aggressive threats against Taiwan, they said.
Photo: CNA
Last year, the talks centered on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the focus is expected to shift to issues involving the Taiwan Strait as US President Joe Biden has been promoting bilateral and trilateral relationships with Australia, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea for the past year, said Wong Ming-hsien (翁明賢), director of Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies.
The two sides are also expected to discuss how the Indo-Pacific allies could respond to a Taiwan contingency and China’s non-traditional threats, such as the “gray zone” tactics used by its “maritime militia,” Wong said.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) interactions with US fighter jets and Canadian and US warships “could be seen as provocations,” he said.
The PLA strategically positioned its aircraft carriers Shandong and Liaoning around Taiwan, demonstrating its ambition to control the first island chain and claim the Taiwan Strait as its internal waterway, he added.
The US and Taiwan might also discuss how to respond to these situations at the talks, Wong said.
The talks are the highest-level routine dialogue between Taiwan and the US, Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said.
The two sides would likely discuss major policies instead of detailed implementation during the talks, which fall between national security and national military strategy, Su said.
In addition to the Monterey Talks, Taiwan and the US have two other major channels for dialogue: meetings between the ministers of national defense and foreign affairs from both sides, and meetings about logistics and arms sales, he said.
As the Department of Strategic Planning is involved, the talks are expected to touch upon arms procurements from the US, Taiwan’s ammunition reserves and US military aid, Institute for National Defense and Security Research analyst Shu Hsiao-huang (舒孝煌) said.
The American Institute in Taiwan declined to comment on the talks.
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