Taiwan air force Mirage 2000 fighter jets taxi at Hsinchu Air Base, Taiwan, Jan. 11, 2022. (Seth Robson/Stars and Stripes)
The White House has authorized more than a half-billion dollars in extra military assistance for Taiwan amid ongoing tensions with China over the future of the island democracy.
In a Monday memo, President Joe Biden delegated authority to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to draw “up to $567 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Taiwan.”
The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 requires the United States to provide Taiwan with weapons “of a defensive nature.”
The latest aid is a significant upgrade from the $345 million Biden announced in July 2023. That package included man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles.
It comes amid ongoing tension over Taiwan, which Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to reunify with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Beijing routinely sends military aircraft across the Taiwan Strait, forcing the island’s military to scramble fighters to intercept the threat.
On Sept. 5 and 6, for example, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense reported 19 Chinese military aircraft, including fighters, drones and helicopters, approaching the island.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and its allies routinely steam through the 110-mile-wide strait that separates Taiwan from the mainland. On Wednesday Japanese, Australian and New Zealand warships made such a transit.
Beijing views those passages as provocative and regularly condemns them as support for Taiwan. China does not consider the strait an international waterway.
Biden has said U.S. troops would defend Taiwan if China invaded, although walk-backs by his staff suggest a deliberate policy of strategic ambiguity meant to deter conflict by leaving the possibility of U.S. intervention uncertain.
The latest aid package is higher than ever and authorizes Blinken to take weapons from U.S. stockpiles to assist the island, Ming-Shih Shen of Taipei’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research told Stars and Stripes by email Tuesday.
“It is generally believed that assistance projects include small arms, ammunition, anti-armor missiles, multi-domain combat systems, etc., as well as military education and training costs,” he wrote.
The aid won’t impact arms sales to Taiwan and may boost Taiwan’s military strength before Biden leaves office, Shen said.
Some of the assistance is related to multidomain operations, he said.
Those operations involve intelligence, information, cyber, electronic warfare, and space capabilities.
“The Taiwanese military receives training at the National Guard Multi-Domain Training Center in Michigan and can learn U.S. multidomain operations concepts and learn many experiences and lessons from the U.S. in the Ukraine war,” Shen wrote.
