WASHINGTON – The Pentagon will soon send a package of security assistance to Taiwan, using the identical disbursement authority that america has relied on to offer Ukraine with about three dozen tranches of aid since Russia invaded earlier last yr, it told Congress this week Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
The package – which is expected to amount to about $500 million – will probably be the primary to come back from the $1 billion in military aid that Congress authorized President Biden to send Taiwan off US supplies as a part of the fiscal yr 2023 budget.
“This is a part of our longstanding commitment to upholding our obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act and other U.S. policies, and doing our part to take care of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Austin told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.
The move is sure to attract the wrath of Beijing as tensions between the US and China escalate. Chinese President Xi Jinping has made “reunification” with the self-governing island a top goal for the nation, and his administration has commonly spoken out against any contact between Washington and Taipei.
“Taiwan is an inalienable a part of China’s territory,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters on Wednesday.
“China’s position on Taiwan is consistent and clear.”
![Lloyd Austin](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000011200894.jpg?w=1024)
Declining stocks
While this is the primary aid package announced for Taiwan, america has sent no less than 35 military aid packages to Ukraine since Moscow’s forces invaded on February 24, 2022.
Some Republican lawmakers, most notably Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), were critical of U.S. aid to Kiev, arguing that the U.S. should prioritize aid to Taiwan due to threat China poses to national security.
“The seizure of Taiwan is one other step by Beijing towards dominance in the Indo-Pacific region,” Hawley said in December.
“We must not let this occur. Reversing the actual and growing threat posed by China requires us to hurry up the availability to Taiwan of the weapons it must defend itself.”
The US doesn’t intend to finish its support for Ukraine, which is preparing for an expected counter-offensive later this yr.
![Taiwanese reservists participate in military reserve training in Taoyuan, northern Taiwan](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000010931757.jpg?w=1024)
But to maintain supplies going to each countries, Austin said the Pentagon will need Congress to approve more funding to replenish America’s arms reserves, which hit with every payroll package announced.
This may be achieved with an extra spending bill, which MPs did last yr.
“We’re going to completely need funds to switch the things we offer,” Austin explained.
“We is not going to hesitate to come back forward and ask for what we’d like to make certain we keep our supplies.”
Austin didn’t say what sorts of weapons and equipment the US would send to Taiwan, but Taipei has been complaining for months about delays in shipments of US goods reminiscent of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles because the defense industry worked to maintain up with Ukraine’s demands.
He also didn’t provide a timeline for aid, but america has traditionally relied on presidential powers to quickly get weapons to where they’re needed, sourcing them from American stockpiles reasonably than ordering recent ones.
“Presidential draw [is] critical in our efforts to offer Taiwan with what it must forge self-defense in the long run,” Austin said.
“We’re working on this initiative and hope to see the motion here and in the near future.”
Repelling the “porcupine”.
Defense experts said this week that the package would likely include equipment to stop Beijing from sending troops to invade the island, reasonably than arming Taiwan with aid “able to fight tonight.”
The idea could be to create a “porcupine effect” to discourage Beijing from launching a ground attack by sending aid before the war breaks out, Naval Evaluation Center research program director Jonathan Schroden told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.
The term “porcupine” comes from the “resistance operational concept” used in Eastern Europe to stop Russia from invading the Baltic states and other countries in the region, Schroden said.
“The common idea is to show these countries into … hedgehogs or porcupines for the Russian bear,” Schroden said.
“So now there’s a lot of debate about whether there’s a way we could turn Taiwan into a porcupine-looking island for the Chinese.”
The idea already has support in Congress. Senator John Hoeven (R-ND), who recently returned from a visit to Taiwan, told Austin on Tuesday that the island must change into a symbolic porcupine “sooner reasonably than later.”
This is the other of what the US did for Ukraine in the months leading as much as the Russian invasion.
On this case, the Biden administration didn’t deter Moscow in part since it selected to send weapons quietly to avoid provocations by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“We made a draw [on] Labor Day before the beginning of the war – the aggression has begun,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the budget committee on Tuesday.
“We did one other one [on] Christmas – we did it quietly in order not to present the Russians an excuse.”
But Blinken went on to defend that call, nothing that the packages sent to Ukraine in 2021 prepared Kiev’s forces to thwart Russia’s goal of capturing the Ukrainian capital.
“We were withdrawing critical equipment long before Russian aggression because we anticipated it was coming [and] to make certain the Ukrainians have what they need in hand to repel this aggression,” Blinken said.
“… Stingers and Javelins they did not have as a result [before the US packages] allowed them to repel the attack on Kiev.