Four high-ranking Republicans in Congress sent a letter to President Joe Biden demanding more military aid for Taiwan. In their letter, the legislators claimed the White House is not doing enough to respond to the growing threat from Beijing.
The four Congressmen who signed on to the letter hold powerful committee appointments: Representatives Mike Rogers (R-AL), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, along with U.S. Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Jim Risch (R-ID), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The letter lambasts the White House for "failing to act" against Chinese threats, "Your National Security Strategy has identified China as the top geopolitical challenge facing the United States." The statement continues, "However, your administration has consistently failed to act with the seriousness and urgency needed to arm and equip Taiwan."
In their letter, the members claim Biden did not respond aggressively enough to a Chinese balloon that traveled over American airspace. The Pentagon asserts that the craft never presented a threat to Americans. The White House ordered the military to shoot down the balloon after it had blown over the Atlantic Ocean.
Beijing says the craft is merely a weather balloon for scientific purposes that only flew over the US after it blew off course. The Pentagon says it tracked the balloon after it took off in Chinese territory and it was blown off course by unexpected storms.
While some American legislators speculated the balloon could present a threat to Americans, the US government has not provided evidence that the balloon was any kind of military or surveillance craft.
Over the past decade, the relationship between Washington and Beijing has deteriorated. Still, the four Congressmen say the White House should continue to strengthen its military relationship with Taiwan.
The legislators acknowledge that providing more military aid to Taipei will provoke Beijing but the members do not believe that hostility with China should deter a greater American military relationship with Taiwan.
"The United States must not be deterred from taking meaningful actions to counter CCP objectives that threaten our interests." The letter continues, "We must be willing to accept the tension that comes with supporting Taiwan amidst China’s threats and aggression, and we must match words with actions."
In the letter, the legislators call for Biden to add $2 billion in military aid to Taipei in the form of a grant, rather than a loan. The loan would require Taiwan to pay back the US government. The White House is expected to submit its budget proposal for the fiscal year ending in September 2024 on March 9.
Recently, the White House officially warned that the lack of contact between Beijing and Washington is becoming dangerous. The balloon incident earlier this month further eroded ties between China and the US. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to travel to China in early February for a meeting with his counterpart and President Xi Jinping. However, Blinken scrapped his plans after the Chinese balloon was spotted over Montana.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was unable to reach the Chinese Defense Minister on a bilateral hotline after an F-22 downed the craft. Defense official Ely Ratner claimed Beijing’s cold shoulder was "dangerous."
Biden has repeatedly aggravated Beijing by saying the US will defend Taiwan if China invades. The statements violate the ‘One China’ policy that has guided the Washington-Beijing relationship for decades. Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway region and American support for Taipei as interference in an internal Chinese matter.
Last summer, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Taiepi. The visit by a high-level American official to Taiwan enraged China, prompting Beijing to order massive war games around the island.
Current House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is planning to replicate Pelosi’s provocative trip. On Friday, a high-ranking American defense official traveled to Taiwan. The Department of Defense did not confirm the visit.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
Ah yes, bipartisan war parties at it again. They do this while they put on this dog and pony show about the deficit while they conspire together to spend MORE and EVER MORE on war. You tell me, how the heck will you ever have a balanced budget when you spend 2/3 of our tax dollars on an unlimited war budget?
The voters don’t care about Foreign Policy. They only complain about transphobia and abortion or how vaccines and masks hurt their little freedumbs. Woke vs non-woke is the current political clown show.
I’m tired of asking: When are we going to be tired of war? WAPO: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/12/americans-arent-that-tired-war-fact/ (Sarcasm alert)
Pretty slick of them, right there. Get Joe to do something stupid (which is not too difficult, as Obama said: “never underestimate the ability of Joe to f*ck things up”)
Hopefully if Texas decides to secede from the United States, China will provide them with military assistance. What’s good for Taiwan is just as good for Texas.
Except that Taiwan, not being part of China, can’t “secede” from China.
But, since you mention it, I guess it’s a reasonable argument for the Russian military assistance provided to the seceded Donbas republics for eight years.
Thomas, just about every nation in the world, including the United States, officially recognizes Taiwan as part of China. So, officially, Taiwan is part of China.
It is not, and never has been, part of the People’s Republic of China. The last time a Beijing-based regime ruled it (for a fairly short period before Japan took it away) was during the Qing dynasty.
If there’s any political connection at all, it’s that the Kuomintang regime fled there after the Communists won the civil war on the mainland — and claim the mainland as part of the “Republic of China.” To understand how ridiculous the idea is that it would need to “secede from” the PRC, reverse the question and ask if Xi Jinping needs to ask the next CCP congress for a resolution seceding from Taiwanese rule.
The tragedy here, as I understand it, is that all Taiwan has to do is pretend that they are part of China, and China will allow them to operate in their separate system with a large degree of autonomy, but the US, for their own selfish interests, wants to screw that up for the people of Taiwan.
Presumably the Taiwanese do find it tiresome to have to pretend real hard that they’re part of China every time Xi throws himself on the floor and threatens to hold his breath until he turns blue because someone didn’t pretend hard enough to please him.
To be sure, Thomas, I’m all for Taiwan independence, if that’s what the people of Taiwan want. But if it was my choice between pretend to be part of China while exercising a large degree of autonomy, and being destroyed as a result of the collision of two superpowers which Taiwan is stuck in between, I would choose to pretend to be part of China. That may not be the ideal situation for Taiwan, but the much lesser of two evils.
I suspect that if the US didn’t keep pushing and poking at the matter, that would be the general Taiwanese attitude. And I wish the US would stop pushing and poking at the matter. If it was up to me, the US wouldn’t be pushing militarization on e.g. Taiwan. Give them full diplomatic recognition as an independent nation if they want it, and have free trade with them if they want it, but not meddle in their relations with other nations. Ditto occupied Tibet, etc.
How far back in history do we go to call a country “occupied”?
For as far back in history as it’s remained occupied. Tibet still has an active government in exile that plausibly claims succession from the government which fled the Chinese invasion, and still seems to enjoy support within the invaded territory, so it still seems reasonable to notice that it’s occupied.
Delusions of grandeur, just for a change.
My point is that China claims Taiwan as part of China, and most of the world officially recognizes that Taiwan is part of China. The people on Taiwan are divided about independence from vs reunification with China. The US should stay the hell out of it, but they are getting involved for reasons that have nothing to do with the interests of the people of Taiwan, despite all the lies they are telling about it. And if Texas planned to secede from the United States, then China should stay the hell out of it. But if that should happen and China did get involved (they wouldn’t), then China would be no worse than the US getting involved in Taiwan. And the US would have nothing legitimate to complain about. My original comment was tongue in cheek.
I agree that the US should stay out of the matter.
But there’s no question of “reunification” with a polity that Taiwan is not and never has been part of. The last time it was part of a Beijing-based regime was nearly 130 years ago, and that Beijing-based regime was the imperial Qing dynasty, not the People’s Republic. Cuba was ruled by the Spanish monarchy until it was seized by the US in 1898, just like the Japanese had seized Taiwan three years earlier, and since then has never been ruled by a Madrid-based regime — does Cuba need to “secede” from Spain?
That means if the Libertarian party ever takes control of the US government, Hawaii can vie for independence because they never would have been part of or governed by the United States, and France can re-acquire the land they gave up in the Lousiana Purchase because the agreement wasn’t made with the current government of France or the United States.
That means if the Libertarian party ever takes control of the US government, Hawaii can vie for independence because they never would have been part of or governed by the United States, and France can re-acquire the land they gave up in the Lousiana Purchase because the agreement wasn’t made with the current government of France or the United States.
What on earth does the Libertarian Party have to do with any of that?
It doesn’t – I just picked that party out of a hat (maybe the/a Socialist Party would have suited you better?),and it was just used as an example of your ridiculous claim that the form of government, or party in power is what determines whether a country rules an area or not, or a geographic area was part of a country or not, or whether past history or agreements don’t have anything to do with current claims/legalities.
I thought it might be something that idiotic.
Taiwan was recognized as the government of all China from 1949 to 1971 at the UN, and by the United States until 1979. Looks like Taiwan loved the “one China” rule but now wants to take their bat and ball and go home.
Did they also send a letter to Russia and/or China advising them that those nations failed to act when we destroyed Iraq?
Looks like the Taiwan Lobby has replaced the China Lobby out of Taipei, when Taiwan claimed all of China and the “the world” recognized it.