A group of US lawmakers held a rare publicly disclosed meeting with Taiwan’s top defense official, a discussion that risks spurring China to step up its military intimidation of the democracy.
The delegation, led by US Representative Ami Bera from California, met with Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) on Tuesday in Taipei, the Military News Agency reported yesterday.
Koo said that Taiwan is a reliable partner for the US and is committed to strengthening its defensive capabilities, the report said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
US President Donald Trump had suggested during his presidential campaign last year that Taipei increase its military spending.
The meeting adds to events lately that Beijing is likely to perceive as provocative. Beijing on Tuesday hit back at Taiwan for joining a years-long US campaign to curtail China’s technological ascent when it blacklisted the nation’s artificial intelligence (AI) and chipmaking champions.
Bera and the other lawmakers met President William Lai (賴清德) on Monday. While such meetings are fairly common for US lawmakers, they still annoy Beijing because it opposes nations it has ties with from having official contact with Taiwan.
China would also note that military officials from Taiwan attended exercises at a key US military base in Alaska last week. Also last week, retired military officials from Taiwan, Japan and the US reportedly attended a simulated “tabletop exercise” in Taipei.
A new round of Chinese exercises around Taiwan soon cannot be ruled out, said Lin Po-chou (林柏州), assistant research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a Taipei-based government-affiliated think tank.
“China might also escalate the scale of the existing provocation of Taiwan, or express dissatisfaction through propaganda warfare or commentary in official media outlets,” he added.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has held an unprecedented amount of exercises around Taiwan since Lai took office a little more than a year ago. It has also flexed its naval might around Japan and Australia.
The latest developments come as China-US tensions cooled following trade talks in London last week. Taipei is also holding discussions with Washington to avoid getting hit with tariffs.
While previous US delegations are likely to have had meetings with Taiwanese defense ministers, they are not usually publicly disclosed.
A group in 2021 visited the Ministry of National Defense in Taipei and was briefed on China’s military threats. Reports at the time did not say which Taiwanese military officials the lawmakers met.
The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment yesterday.
Jack Chen (陳彥廷), director of Formosa Defense Vision, an advocacy group, said the announcement of the meeting between Koo and the US visitors “showed that the military exchanges and cooperation between the US and Taiwan are becoming increasingly high profile and transparent, aligning with a long-term trend that began under the [former US president Joe] Biden administration and has continued into the Trump administration.”
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
RSS