Taipei says it’s yet to receive formal notice as concerns grow over Washington’s commitment to island’s security
The U.S. is pausing a $14bn arms sale to Taiwan as it diverts munitions to sustain the war against Iran, exposing mounting anxieties over rapidly depleting stockpiles.
It comes just days after Donald Trump returned from a high-profile summit with Xi Jinping in China, a country that claims sovereignty over self-governed Taiwan and has threatened to “reunite” it with the mainland by force, if necessary.
Trump said he had discussed the matter of the $14bn arms deal “in great detail” with Chinese president Xi Jinping and would make a decision “over the next fairly short period”, breaking decades of U.S. policy that states decision on Taiwan should not be made in collaboration with Beijing.
The people of Taiwan, as represented by the government and the Legislative Yuan, do think they need more guns.
Probably because of the swarms of Chinese aircraft which regularly practise attacking them, and the even greater swarms which sit and wait.
I wish there was a diplomatic solution, because any military action in the strait of Taiwan would cause a rapid and severe global crisis.
But the diplomatic action should not be abandoning Taiwan, because that won’t avert a crisis. If Taiwan is attacked, it will fight and land strikes on China too, resulting in exactly the kind of crisis everyone should avoid.
What is this fantasy you live in where we just have to give Taiwan the right amount of guns so it’ll suddenly be able to defend itself enough? Should we give them nukes? All because a generation ago the US got involved in the tail end of the Chinese civil war and created this schism in the first place. The solution to the problem caused by US guns is not more US guns.
You say you wish there was a diplomatic solution. There is. But that is never going to happen while Taiwan is a battleground for 2 global superpowers. The Taiwanese island is right next to mainland China. China is a global superpower. Taiwan has about as much of a realistic chance at full independence from China as Hawaii does from the US. It will never happen. Thinking that sending more guns is going to make it happen is just fantasy. The ONLY solution is to dial down the temperature and let China feel secure enough to not need to force the issue. China has shown a willingness to wait things out as they prefer stability and diplomacy. But if their hand is forced there is no amount of US aid that can stop them from taking Taiwan. The US can’t even beat Iran for fucks sake. All giving them more weapons is doing is getting more innocent people on both sides killed by prolonging their inevitable defeat in the military conflict those very guns will be the catalyst for.
I live in a country of 1 million next to a “global superpower” (also see “second army in the world”) (also see “the Russian Federation”).
And I swear by the name of Nestor Makhno that if they’re going to try invading here too, I will be bombing military objects around St. Petersburg.
This is the same thing that the rest of NATO swears, not all by the name of Makhno, some have different ideas about what might work. :)
Deterrence works. People have the right to self-determination. They realize this right with alliances and guns. If a neigbour has plans, is big, has problematic manners: then with lots of guns. We learnt that Ukraine did not have enough guns to deter, and as a result Russia tried an invasion. Taiwan has geopolitical leverage with its chip industry and a sea that somewhat protects, but may have learnt the same lesson from Ukraine and wants more guns.
Also noted: .ml
Easy to talk about dying for a flag when it’s someone else doing the dying.