The United States has announced a $345 million military aid package for Taiwan which, for the first time, will come from existing U.S. military stockpiles instead of purchases through the foreign military sales program.
“The U.S. will supply Taiwan with $345 million in defense equipment, services and training, using the fast-track authority that it has relied on to speed arms to Ukraine.
The package will include ‘critical defensive stockpiles, multi domain awareness, anti-armor and air-defense capabilities’, said Lieutenant Colonel Martin Meiners, a Defense Department spokesperson.
China, which claims the self-governed island as part of its territory, quickly criticized the decision.
‘China is firmly opposed to U.S.’s military ties with and arms sales to Taiwan’, Chinese Embassy Spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement. Liu called on the U.S. to ‘stop creating new factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait’.
The weapons and support equipment will come from existing stockpiles under what’s known as a Presidential Drawdown Authority. That lets the U.S. sidestep the often-lengthy process of contracting and producing weapons, which lawmakers say has resulted in a $19 billion backlog in armaments that have been approved but not yet delivered to Taiwan”. -Peter Martin, Bloomberg
While the United States is well aware that it cannot afford the cost of treating China as one of its adversaries, it appears to have knowingly just handed China a casus belli to invade Taiwan.
Now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it’s clear that the powers that be dictating the U.S. foreign policy in Europe and Asia are currently pursuing a course of action that will all but ensure the depletion of the militaries of the NATO alliance and the destruction of the economies of the West.