TAIPEI - Taiwan will work with the United States to “safeguard peace and freedom” in the region, the island’s Premier said on April 22, after Washington approved billions in military aid for Taipei in the face of an increasingly assertive China.
The US House of Representatives on April 20 passed four Bills in a US$95 billion (S$129.4 billion) package, approving military aid to Ukraine and bolstering Israel’s defences.
Some US$8 billion under one Bill would be used to counter China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to bring the democratic island under its control.
Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said on April 21 that about US$1.9 billion is earmarked for replenishing its military equipment and training and another US$2 billion will be used for “foreign military financing” for economies in the region, including Taiwan.
The announcement also comes days before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits China, hoping to press Beijing to curb wartime support for Russia.
“A peaceful and stable Taiwan Strait is a most important key to peace and prosperity in the world,” Taiwanese Premier Chen Chien-jen said on April 22.
“Taiwan will continue to work with like-minded countries, including the United States, and all countries in the free democratic camp... to safeguard peace and freedom in the Indo-Pacific region and make the Taiwan Strait area more stable,” he added.
The 180km waterway separates Taiwan from China and it is among the world’s busiest shipping routes.
It is also a hot spot of tensions between Beijing and Taipei, as relations have plummeted since 2016 after Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen came into power.
She has refused to acknowledge Beijing’s claim over the island, saying instead that Taiwan is “already independent”, and during her two terms has bolstered defence spending for the island’s armed forces.
Her office on April 21 thanked the US Congress for approving the Bills, which “shows that the United States’ security commitment to Taiwan has a clear bipartisan consensus”, said presidential spokeswoman Olivia Lin.
Mr Blinken’s trip marks a lowering of US-China friction that soared under former president Donald Trump.
High on the agenda for Washington’s top diplomat will be what US officials say is a major push by China that has helped Russia, in the throes of the Ukraine invasion, carry out its biggest militarisation since Soviet times.
But Beijing has regularly expressed anger at international support for Taipei and criticised the US for meddling in its affairs. AFP
