{"id":59968,"date":"2024-05-27T15:36:51","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T15:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/27\/u-s-lawmakers-visit-taiwan-and-vow-support-in-face-of-chinese-military-drills\/"},"modified":"2024-05-27T15:36:51","modified_gmt":"2024-05-27T15:36:51","slug":"u-s-lawmakers-visit-taiwan-and-vow-support-in-face-of-chinese-military-drills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/27\/u-s-lawmakers-visit-taiwan-and-vow-support-in-face-of-chinese-military-drills\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Lawmakers Visit Taiwan and Vow Support in Face of Chinese Military Drills"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/27\/multimedia\/27taiwan-qpmt\/27taiwan-qpmt-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"U.S. Lawmakers Visit Taiwan and Vow Support in Face of Chinese Military Drills\" title=\"U.S. Lawmakers Visit Taiwan and Vow Support in Face of Chinese Military Drills\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After China performed <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/22\/world\/asia\/china-taiwan-drills.html\" title=\"\">two days of military drills<\/a> intended to punish Taiwan, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas on Monday stood alongside the island nation\u2019s newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, and issued a promise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe United States must maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or coercion that would jeopardize the security of the people of Taiwan,\u201d Mr. McCaul, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said. \u201cThat is what we stand for, and that is what we continue to say.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. McCaul, a Republican, traveled this week to Taipei with a bipartisan delegation of other American lawmakers in an attempt, he said, to show that the U.S. government stood in lock step with Mr. Lai and Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The trip, which will last through the week, comes at a fraught time: Just days after Mr. Lai was sworn into office and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/19\/world\/asia\/taiwan-president-china-us.html\" title=\"\">vowed in his inaugural address<\/a> to defend Taiwan\u2019s sovereignty, China responded by surrounding the self-governing island with naval vessels and military aircraft. Before the lawmakers arrived, the Chinese government had publicly warned them to \u201cseriously abide by the one-China policy\u201d and \u201cnot to schedule any congressional visit to Taiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Just a few days ago, China \u201cconducted two days of military drills in the Taiwan Strait to express their displeasure with President Lai,\u201d Lin Chia-lung, Taiwan\u2019s foreign minister, told Mr. McCaul at a news conference on Monday.<span class=\"css-8l6xbc evw5hdy0\">  <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou can say in this critical time, it is a powerful display,\u201d Mr. Lin added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Even as many Republicans in Congress balked at providing continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine, support for Taiwan has remained a largely bipartisan endeavor. A number of conservatives have argued that the United States should pull back its investments in Ukraine and instead bolster deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region. In April, the House <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/20\/us\/politics\/house-foreign-aid-bill.html\" title=\"\">voted to approve $8 billion<\/a> for Taiwan in a lopsided 385-to-34 vote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cEven though there are debates about other theaters of war,\u201d Mr. McCaul said, \u201cI can tell you there is no division or no dissension when it comes to Taiwan in the Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But deep challenges remain. Even though there are few political hurdles to approving fresh tranches of aid for Taiwan, the backlog of undelivered orders of arms and military equipment to the island from the United States has grown to nearly $20 billion. Some weapons systems that Washington approved for Taiwan in 2020 have yet to be sent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By far, the biggest part of the undelivered inventory is an order <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/08\/16\/world\/asia\/taiwan-f16.html\" title=\"\">approved by the Trump administration<\/a> in 2019 for 66 F-16 fighter jets, which makes up over 40 percent of the backlog, according to Eric Gomez, a researcher at the Cato Institute in Washington who, with a co-researcher, has compiled a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cato.org\/blog\/taiwan-arms-backlog-april-2024-update\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">running estimate of the delays<\/a>. Other items that Taiwan is waiting for include a Harpoon coastal defense system, mobile rocket launchers called HIMARS and Abrams tanks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The additional $8 billion of military spending support for Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region approved by Congress would not make a big dent in the backlog, Mr. Gomez said. That amount includes $1.9 billion to enable the Pentagon to release weapons to send to Taiwan from U.S. stockpiles, with the money then used to replenish the American inventory. But the United States \u201cdoes not have the capability in its stockpile to send\u201d those, Mr. Gomez said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And there are quietly growing fears among supporters of Taiwan that Western allies, chief among them the United States, will become bogged down in other intractable conflicts \u2014 in Ukraine and the Middle East \u2014 that will further erode their capacity to send arms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cPeople in Taiwan look at what happened in Hong Kong, they look at Afghanistan, they look at Putin,\u201d Mr. McCaul said in an interview. \u201cThey\u2019re worried that this is going to be the next shoe to drop, and they should be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI don\u2019t want anyone to think that we can\u2019t support Taiwan because of Ukraine,\u201d he added. \u201cThe stuff going to Ukraine is old and it\u2019s old NATO stuff; this is all brand-new for Taiwan. But I just think our defense industrial base is overloaded right now, and it cannot handle this amount of conflict in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lai, in remarks delivered at the Office of the President, alluded to the critical role that the United States had played in assisting the Taiwanese people\u2019s \u201cdetermination to defend their homeland.\u201d He praised former President Ronald Reagan \u2014 a favorite among conservatives, and especially with Speaker Mike Johnson, who frequently quotes him \u2014 for his \u201cconcept of peace through strength.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWith your support, I hope that Congress through legislative action will continue to assist Taiwan,\u201d Mr. Lai said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The aim of the delegation\u2019s visit, Mr. McCaul said, was to show lawmakers\u2019 commitment to do just that. He said he was heartened by how little backlash he and other Republicans had received after Congress moved to pass <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/23\/us\/politics\/senate-aid-package-ukraine-israel-taiwan.html\" title=\"\">the enormous aid package<\/a> for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou can see the impact that vote has here,\u201d Mr. McCaul said. \u201cIt has real-life consequences; it\u2019s not some political game on the floor. It has real consequences here, it has real consequences in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The visiting delegation includes Mr. McCaul and Representatives Young Kim, Republican of California; Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina; Jimmy Panetta, Democrat of California; Andy Barr, Republican of Kentucky; and Chrissy Houlahan, Democrat of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Christopher Buckley<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/27\/world\/asia\/us-visit-taiwan-president-china-drills.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After China performed two days of military drills intended to punish Taiwan, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas on Monday stood alongside the island nation\u2019s newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, and issued a promise. \u201cThe United States must maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or coercion that would jeopardize the security of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/27\/multimedia\/27taiwan-qpmt\/27taiwan-qpmt-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3394,21448,2086,900,2198,864,2251,221,1690,20725],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59970,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59968\/revisions\/59970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}