China Blasts US Military Aid to Taiwan 04/24 06:21
China on Wednesday blasted the latest package of U.S. military assistance to
Taiwan on Wednesday, saying that such funding was pushing the self-governing
island republic into a "dangerous situation."
BEIJING (AP) -- China on Wednesday blasted the latest package of U.S.
military assistance to Taiwan on Wednesday, saying that such funding was
pushing the self-governing island republic into a "dangerous situation."
The U.S. Senate late Tuesday passed $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine,
Israel and Taiwan after months of delays and contentious debate over how
involved the United States should be in foreign wars. China claims the entire
island of Taiwan as its own territory and has threatened to take it by force if
necessary.
The mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office said the aid "seriously violates" U.S.
commitments to China and "sends a wrong signal to the Taiwan independence
separatist forces."
Office spokesperson Zhu Fenglian added that Taiwan's ruling pro-independence
Democratic Progressive Party, which won a third four-year presidential term in
January, is willing to "become a pawn for external forces to use Taiwan to
contain China, bringing Taiwan into a dangerous situation."
On Tuesday, Taiwan's President-elect Lai Ching-te told a visiting U.S.
Congressional delegation that the aid package would "strengthen the deterrence
against authoritarianism in the West Pacific ally chain" and "help ensure peace
and stability across the Taiwan Strait and also boost confidence in the region."
The package has had broad congressional support since Biden first requested
the money last summer. But congressional leaders had to navigate strong
opposition from a growing number of conservatives who question U.S. involvement
in foreign wars and argue that Congress should be focused instead on the surge
of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The package covers a wide range of parts and services aimed at maintaining
and and upgrading Taiwan's military hardware. Separately, Taiwan has signed
billions in contracts with the U.S. for latest-generation F-16V fighter jets,
M1 Abrams main battle tanks and the HIMARS rocket system, which the U.S. has
also supplied to Ukraine.
Taiwan has also been expanding its own defense industry, building submarines
and trainer jets. Next month, it plans to commission its third and fourth
domestically designed and built stealth corvettes to counter the Chinese navy
as ptensions art of a strategy of asymmetrical warfare, in which a smaller
force counters its larger opponent by using cutting edge or nonconventional
tactics and weaponry.
China launches daily incursions into waters and airspace around Taiwan by
navy ships and warplanes. It has also sought to pick away Taiwan's few
remaining formal diplomatic partners.
However, only two People's Liberation Army Air Force planes and seven navy
vessels were found operating in areas around Taiwan between Tuesday afternoon
and Wednesday morning, possibly as a result of heavy rainstorms and low
visibility overnight along the island's west coast facing China.
At times of heightened tensions, China has launched dozens of such missions
over a 24 hour period, many of them crossing the center line in the Taiwan
Strait dividing the sides or entering Taiwan's air defense identification zone.