TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — An $8 billion defense package approved by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend will “strengthen deterrence against authoritarianism in the Western Pacific ally chain,” newly elected Taiwan President Lai Ching said -on Tuesday in a reference to major rival China.
The funding will also “help ensure peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and also increase confidence in the region,” Lai, currently Taiwan’s vice president, told a visiting Michigan representative. Lisa McClaina Republican and Democrat Dan Kildee during a meeting at the presidential office building in the capital Taipei.
Faced with “authoritarian expansionism,” Taiwan is “determined to safeguard democracy and also our homeland,” Lai said.
The US-educated former medical researcher, also known as William Lai, is despised by Beijing for his opposition to political unification with the mainland. In recent elections, pro-unification nationalists won a narrow majority in the legislature, but their influence on foreign policy and other national issues remains limited.
The Senate will vote on Tuesday on $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
The package includes a wide range of parts and services aimed at maintaining and upgrading Taiwan’s military hardware. In addition, Taiwan has signed billion-dollar contracts with the US for the latest generation F-16V fighter jets, M1 Abrams battle tanks and the HIMARS missile system, which the US has also supplied to Ukraine.
Taiwan has also expanded its own defense industry, building submarines and trainer jets. Next month, it plans to field its third and fourth indigenously designed and built stealth corvettes to counter the Chinese navy. as part of a strategy of asymmetric warfare in which a smaller force counters its larger opponent using advanced or unconventional tactics and weapons.
Lai, from the pro-independence ruling Democratic Progressive Party, won January elections handily and will take power next month from President Tsai Ing-wen, who has tried to isolate Beijing for the past eight years.
China is determined to annex the island, which it considers its own territory, by force if necessary and is promoting this threat with daily raids on the waters and airspace around Taiwan by naval ships and warplanes. It has also sought to poach Taiwan’s few remaining formal diplomatic partners.
Although Washington and Taipei do not have formal diplomatic ties in deference to Beijing, McClain emphasized the need for the entire world to observe the strength of the relationship.
“Peace is our goal. But to do that, we have to have relationships and we value your relationship. Not only militarily, but also economically,” she said.
Kildee said the timing of the visit was especially important given the recent passage of the funding bill to “provide very important support to ensure security in this region.”
“It’s important to the people of Taiwan, it’s important to the people of the United States, it’s important to the whole world,” Kildee said.
