The State Department on Wednesday approved a potential $500 million arms sale to Taiwan for infrared search and track systems for the island’s F-16 fighter jets.
The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the sale is to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the US, as Washington and Taipei don’t have formal diplomatic relations. The principal contractor for the deal is Lockheed Martin.
The State Department’s approval begins a period where Congress could block the potential deal, but there is widespread bipartisan support for arming Taiwan and virtually no opposition.
The approval came almost a month after the Biden administration provided Taiwan with $345 million in military aid using the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the US to send weapons straight from Pentagon stockpiles, the primary way the US has been arming Ukraine.
Using the PDA to arm Taiwan is unprecedented as the US has sold weapons to Taiwan since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979 but has never financed the purchases or provided arms free of charge. China issued several stern rebukes to the new form of US support for Taiwan.
The deal approved on Tuesday will also draw a rebuke from Beijing as China opposes all US arms sales to Taiwan. In 1982, the US and China issued a third joint communiqué on their freshly normalized ties regarding US arms sales to Taiwan.
The communiqué said that the US government intended “gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution.” But US officials at the time made clear they were leaving the commitment open to their own interpretation.
On the same day the communiqué was issued, President Reagan said in an internal memo that “the US willingness to reduce its arms sales to Taiwan is conditioned absolutely upon the continued commitment of China to the peaceful solution of the Taiwan-PRC [People’s Republic of China] differences. It should be clearly understood that the linkage between these two matters is a permanent imperative of US foreign policy.”
In recent years, China has increased military pressure on Taiwan, but the activity has primarily been a response to the US increasing its diplomatic and military support for Taiwan, which Beijing views as a violation of the conditions of the US-China normalization.
This will have a serious impact on the UA and African theatres, but who is to say that his replacement will not be just as effective?
The US does not have the troops to dominate Africa. The supply lines are too long and the Chinese are entrenched.
And the Chinese (like the Russians, as it turns out) have the good sense not to treat Africans as if they were just slave material, good enough to pick cotton.
Yes,just kick the farmers off their lands,pay off the politicians, and ship food back to China while Africans starve.
the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the US to send weapons straight from Pentagon stockpiles, the primary way the US has been arming Ukraine
getting rid of outdated stuff to make way for brand new state of the art stuff ?
I January Taiwan will vote in a new government who wants closer ties with mainland China. China will enjoy all the free military toys from Joey Biden.
Alas, I don’t think that will ever happen. The CIA will think of something.
What is the CIA going to do? Kill all the leaders in the world who desert the US economic domination?
That’s always been the case. There’s a lot they do short of actually killing, but it’s always, as they say, ‘on the table’.
You might bear in mind that the CIA has been thinking of something all the way back in 1953 when they gave us the Shah of Iran for 27 years, who in turn gave us the Ayatollahs.
If that happens it will be because of the good karma the US generates.The leaders of our dictatorship are to stupid to realize the error of their ways. After all they have no choice. Either keep spending money on weapons and keeping thr MIC rich and profitable or face a social revolution at home when people start suffering to the point of real anger. The people know who to blame.
You know, it’s amazing just how stupid and clumsy Biden’s people are.
No its not. I always knew who and what he was. An idiot always surrounds himself with idiots.
Well, you’re obviously brilliant. I can only stand in awe 😉