The White House announced on Friday that the Biden administration is sending Taiwan a $345 million cargo of munitions from US stockpiles.
This is the first time the United States has sent equipment from its own inventories to Taiwan using the presidential drawdown authority.
US Announces Military Aid Package For Taiwan
In the annual defense measure enacted by Congress for the 2023 fiscal year, roughly $1 billion was allocated for presidential drawdown packages for Taiwan. Drawing down from US inventories is a fast method to transfer materiel, as demonstrated by the administration's shipment of over 40 drawdowns to Ukraine since August 2021.
According to CBS News, drawdowns circumvent the lengthy foreign military sales procedure, which can take years to deliver weapons and equipment. Not yet known are the contents of the drawdown package for Taiwan and its estimated delivery date.
The transfer of materiel is part of the United States' commitment to bolster Taiwan's self-defense in order to deter or repel a potential Chinese attack. China is developing the military capability to occupy Taiwan by 2027, but according to senior US officials, this does not indicate that China has decided to attack or invade Taiwan.
The announcement is likely to enrage Beijing just as US and Chinese relations have begun to improve following the Chinese surveillance balloon incident. Several senior leaders have conferred this summer, but military-to-military relations have remained stagnant.
Since Li assumed office in March, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has not conferred with his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu. Per ABC.net, Beijing has repeatedly demanded that the United States, Taiwan's most significant arms supplier, cease arms sales to the island. The White House stated that the bundle would include Taiwanese defense, education, and training.
Washington will send man-portable air-defence systems, or MANPADS, as well as intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms, and missiles, according to two US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters prior to the announcement.
The objectives are to help Taiwan counter China and deter Beijing from assaulting by providing Taipei with sufficient weapons to make an invasion prohibitively expensive.
While Chinese diplomats protested the move, Taiwan's trade office in Washington stated that the United States' decision to remove arms and other materials from its available stockpiles would serve as "an essential instrument to support Taiwan's self-defense."
It committed in a statement to cooperate with the United States to preserve "peace, stability, and the status quo" across the Taiwan Strait. The bundle is in addition to the nearly $19 billion in approved military sales of F-16s and other key weapon systems to Taiwan.
The delivery of these weapons has been hampered by supply-chain problems that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and have been exacerbated by the strains placed on the global defense industrial base by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales because this aid is part of a presidential authority approved by Congress last year to draw munitions from current US military stockpiles.This expedites the delivery of weapons more quickly than supplying financing for new weapons. Similar authority has been used by the Pentagon to ship billions of dollars' worth of munitions to Ukraine.
China-Taiwan Tensions
Taiwan separated from China during a civil conflict in 1949. President Xi Jinping of China maintains China's right to take over the island, if necessary by force. China has accused the United States of converting Taiwan into a "powder volcano" by pledging billions of dollars in arms sales.
In deference to Beijing, the United States maintains a "One China" policy under which it does not recognize Taiwan's formal independence and has no formal diplomatic relations with the island. However, US law mandates Taiwan to maintain a credible defense and handle all threats to the island with "grave concern."
China routinely dispatches warships and aircraft across the buffer zone in the Taiwan Strait, as well as into Taiwan's air defence identification zone, in an effort to intimidate the island's 23 million inhabitants and degrade its military capabilities.
