The US’ bolstering of deployment across the Asia-Pacific region, particularly countries along the Pacific Island chains, is in response to China’s expansion of "gray zone" activities in the region, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said today in response to a Wall Street Journal report regarding the Pentagon’s military investment in Guam to protect Taiwan.
A US presence in the region would also protect other nations in the first island chain, not only Taiwan, he said.
Taiwan would take appropriate measures and continue to work with like-minded countries to ensure regional peace and stability, he added.
Photo: CNA
An article published yesterday by the Wall Street Journal titled “Fortifying America’s Pacific Front Line is Getting Expensive and Difficult” detailed the Pentagon’s multi-billion dollar investment to “strengthen Guam’s role as an anchor of US military strategy,” aiming “to deter China’s increasingly powerful military from using force to take over Taiwan.”
Developments on the US island territory include the new Camp Blaz marine base, a navy maintenance facility for submarines and upgrades to Anderson Air Force Base, “from which the US could send long-range bombers into a Taiwan conflict,” it said.
The US plans to increase troops on Guam by 10,000 by 2037, bringing the total number to about 34,000, the article said, with US$6.2 billion to be spent from 2019 to 2028 to establish “force-posture projects.”
As China’s missile capabilities have rapidly improved in recent years, the Pentagon has moved to reinforce military capabilities on Guam, closer to Beijing than Hawaii, it said, although there remains debate as to the strategic value and cost-effectiveness of that investment.
The project is “costly and logistically difficult” and may not bring the desired security advantages, as Guam lies more than 2,400km from Taiwan and the South China Sea, while the US must also contend with China’s “Guam killer,” an upgraded version of the DF-26 missile, it said.
However, as a US territory, Guam allows US forces to forgo foreign approval, it said.
Moreover, China has set the second island chain territory as a key target, after Chinese hackers infiltrated multiple networks on Guam and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues to push military activity beyond the first island chain and into the second.
“Some people feel that Guam is critical because of its location and that we need to make sure that we can operate from Guam effectively... Others believe that Guam is impossible to defend at an acceptable cost and that we should focus more on diversification,” former US defense official from the American Enterprise Institute Zack Cooper said.
As US forces partially withdraw from Okinawa, moving operations to Guam “puts us going the wrong way,” Marine Corps commandant General Eric Smith said in January, adding that the US still needs a deterrent force in the first island chain.
However, “Guam anchors America’s ability to defend, to project power, to sustain alliances and partnerships and above all, to deter aggression,” US Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said last month.
“Guam is just more developed than the other islands, so it makes sense to do the bulk of our investment here,” said Rear Admiral Brett Mietus, a top commander for Guam.
To counter China's growing aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has proposed a budget of NT$41.503 billion (US$1.35 billion) for next fiscal year, which has been sent to the legislature seeking approval for a significant hike from this year's NT$30.587 billion, Lin told reporters today.
The proposed increase of NT$10.916 billion is necessary to deal with China's rising aggression against Taiwan on the global stage, he said when responding to questions by lawmakers of the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People's Party about the reasons behind the significant hike in the proposed budget.
The ministry's proposed budget for next fiscal year stands at 1.37 percent of the government's projected total expenditure for that year, compared to 1.05 percent of the total for this year, an official source told the Central News Agency on condition of anonymity.
However, that amount is very small when compared with China's current foreign affairs budget of 64.5 billion yuan (US$9.05 billion), which has jumped from 5.7 billion yuan 25 years ago, the source added.
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