The White House announced that U.S. President Joe Biden approved on Sunday a military aid package worth $567 million to Taiwan. This latest move is aimed at enhancing Taiwan’s security and defense capabilities amid escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
According to Reuters, the White House stated that President Biden has authorized the Secretary of State to “instruct the reallocation of up to $567 million from Defense Department defense articles and services as well as military education and training for the purpose of providing assistance to Taiwan.”
The statement did not provide further details on the specifics of this aid.
Despite not having formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the United States remains Taiwan’s most important international partner and supplier of defense weapons. The amount of this new aid is nearly double the $345 million assistance provided last year.
As reported by Central News Agency, an anonymous U.S. official mentioned that this new security aid will fund Taiwan’s military in areas such as weapons inventory, anti-armor weapons, air defense, and multi-domain awareness training, and will include a key component of asymmetric warfare – drones.
U.S. officials stated that the Pentagon is currently drafting the third batch of aid for Taiwan, which is expected to be completed before the current administration’s term ends in January next year.
In April of this year, Biden signed a bill to provide Ukraine with billions of dollars in new aid to help defend against Russian aggression. Meanwhile, the U.S. also provided new military aid to Israel and Taiwan.
In recent years, the military threat posed by the Chinese Communist regime to Taiwan has been intensifying.
On September 30th, the Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of China released information showing that from 6 am on the 29th to 6 am on the 30th, 9 Chinese military aircraft and 4 warships were active in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait. Among them, 7 fighter jets crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered the airspace on the western side of Taiwan.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense stated that the military closely monitors and responds to all disruptions caused by Chinese military aircraft and warships using surveillance aircraft, ships, and shore-based missile systems.
A recent report from the U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General criticized the delayed delivery of the first batch of military aid to Taiwan last year.
The report pointed out that due to transportation issues, the delivery of U.S. military aid materials to Taiwan was delayed beyond the expected timeframe. The delayed weapons delivery included upgraded F-14 fighter jets.