- President Joe Biden on Sunday approved $567 million in defense aid for Taiwan.
- It is the largest aid package that US has ever sent to Taiwan.
- China responded, stating the move violates the one-China principle.
President Joe Biden on Sunday said the US will send Taiwan its largest-ever security package amid rising tensions with China.
The $567 million in aid will be used for “defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Taiwan,” the White House said.
The figure is nearly double the amount the US sent in a previous $345 million package last year.
China struck a defiant tone in response to the aid.
“No matter how many weapons the United States supplies to Taiwan, it will never weaken our firm will in opposing Taiwanese independence, and safeguarding China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in a press conference.
Lin also said the move “seriously violates” the One-China principle, which is the diplomatic acknowledgment that there is just one Chinese government.
China has repeatedly criticized US support for Taiwan, which it claims is Chinese territory and not a separate state.
The island declared its autonomy from the mainland in 1949 when nationalist rebels fled there after the Communists won the civil war. But with China growing increasingly powerful, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has placed seizing back control of Taiwan as a key priority.
Phil Davidson, the former US Indo-Pacific commander, said in 2021 that China may invade Taiwan by 2027.
Spotting Chinese attack
The scale of Chinese military activity around Taiwan is believed to be getting larger, as previously reported by Business Insider.
In May China carried out two-day drills near Taiwan, which included a fleet of nearly 50 ships and bombers that carried out mock attacks.
The drills “looked like a rehearsal” for an invasion, Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific region, said at the time. He added that the US had been prioritizing deterrence in the region.
Speaking to reporters earlier this month, Taiwan’s defense minister said it will become harder to spot early signs of a Chinese attack due to its growing military activity.
“The scale of [China’s military] activity is getting larger and larger, and so it is harder to discern when they might be shifting from training to a large exercise, and from an exercise to war,” Wellington Koo said, per the Financial Times.
The US response
For decades, the US has adopted “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan, declining to say outright whether it would come to Taiwan’s aid if China attacked.
There has been a shift in tone in recent months. Rather than Biden has repeatedly suggested the US would respond militarily if China declared war on Taiwan.
War in Taiwan could have a steep global cost. Bloomberg Economics estimated in January that it would cost around $10 trillion, equal to about 10% of global GDP.
As BI’s Tom Porter previously noted, Biden is treading a line between not aggravating China’s nationalist president and providing Taiwan with the weapons it needs to potentially fend off China’s vast military.
Xi is also trying to find a balance given it remains dependent on Western markets and American investment.
Jim Hoare, a former British diplomat and China expert, told BI that the package could “hardly be a surprise” to China, considering that US support for Taiwan has been consistent over the years.
“China may stage more ‘provocations’ around Taiwan as they have been doing regularly in the last few years,” said Hoare, “but economic links with the US are vital for China’s economy so I doubt they will do much more.”
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