The United States has recently approved several major arms sales to Taiwan, and unlike in the past, this round of arms sales includes several weapons that could be considered offensive in an effort to strengthen Taiwan’s defensive deterrent capabilities and make it more costly for Beijing to use force against Taiwan.
The United States has provided defense assistance to Taiwan since the late 1970s under the Taiwan Relations Act, and for decades arms sales have been essentially defensive in nature. Military experts have noted, however, that recent rounds of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have begun to include advanced offensive weapons.
The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) notified Congress last month that it had approved three programs, including the HIMARS high-mobility rocket launcher system and related equipment, on Oct. 21. A few days later, on October 26, the administration again notified Congress that it had approved the possible sale to Taiwan of up to 100 sets of SLAM-ER surface-to-air missiles based on the Harpoon missile.
Hunsaker, a professor at George Mason University and deputy director of the Center for Security Policy Studies who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, said the United States has sold arms to Taiwan before that could be used for offensive purposes, such as the AAV-7 amphibious armored vehicle equipped by the U.S. Marine Corps. But never have advanced offensive weapons systems like the Seamus and Harpoon been sold,” he said.
These two systems are relatively long-range and highly accurate,” he said. I certainly don’t think we’ve sold any systems to Taiwan that have this type of capability.”
Zheng Jiwen, editor-in-chief of Taiwan’s Asia Pacific Defense magazine, said this is the first time the United States has sold missiles to Taiwan that can hit the mainland of China.
In particular, he said, “the sale of something like the Seamus multiple rocket, which has a range of 300 kilometers, which is a range and a weapon with attributes that have not been seen in the past. In addition, the SLAM-ER was sold, which has a range of more than 250 kilometers, which is an unprecedented capability for air-to-ground and sea attack. So these waves of arms sales to Taiwan can be said to be a relatively large-scale U.S. offering of weapons with a certain offensive capability, or the ability to project firepower onto mainland territory with firepower coverage, which is a relatively large feature of these rounds of arms sales.”
Beijing immediately protested strongly against these arms sales and announced sanctions against U.S. companies, individuals and entities involved in the arms sales to Taiwan, including U.S. military manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, and aircraft manufacturing company Boeing. The official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary last week that this was a “step-by-step escalation” of U.S. efforts to play the Taiwan card and “raise the danger factor” in the Taiwan Strait. The commentary quoted unnamed military experts as saying that the restriction on the supply of “defensive weapons” had been breached.
Writing on the website of The Diplomat last week, Bonnie Gillard, president of the Chinese affairs consulting firm WaldoCommons, said that these missiles would be able to deliver precision strikes against the Chinese military’s air and amphibious targets in the event of a forcible attack on Taiwan, and that the mainland’s assembled fleet off the coast of Fujian province would be within range of these missiles.
But on the other hand, Bonnie Girard said in an interview with the Voice of America that the United States is not selling these weapons for offensive purposes, but to deter China from attempting to use force against Taiwan.
These offensive weapons are now being used as a deterrent,” she said. These offensive weapons can be seen as a defensive capability to prevent problems before they occur.”
Drew Thompson, former director of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, said on social media that the SLAM-ER Harpoon anti-ship missile and mobile ground launchers have an “asymmetric” capability to help Taiwan defend itself against air and sea attacks. Bonnie Glaser, senior advisor and director of the China Strength Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a U.S. think tank, also tweeted that the Harpoon coastal defense system plays an important role in enhancing deterrence capabilities. An important role.
Derek Grossman, a senior analyst on defense issues at the RAND Corporation, a U.S. strategic research organization that used to work for U.S. intelligence agencies, said that while the missiles could reach mainland China, that was not the U.S. intention.
He said, “At the time of the sale to Taiwan, I’m certain that the U.S. and Taiwan agreed that these missiles would be used as part of Taiwan’s defense capabilities.”
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said that the round of U.S. weaponry is an “ongoing effort by the U.S. to resupply and sell the defensive weapons I need under the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances to strengthen our overall defense capabilities.” The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency also stated in a related press release that these proposed sales are consistent with U.S. law and policy.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry attacked the sales as a serious violation of the One China principle and the three U.S.-China joint communiqués, particularly the August 17 Joint Communiqué.
Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a document with the Chinese government on August 17, 1982, regarding defense assistance to Taiwan, which stated in Article VI that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan “will not exceed the level of performance and quantity supplied in recent years after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China. However, the document also indicates that this is based on China’s policy of seeking a peaceful solution to the Taiwan issue.
In addition, a declassified White House memo posted on the official website of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the U.S. government’s representative office in Taiwan, shows that President Reagan had instructed his then Secretaries of State and Defense that if China failed to commit to a peaceful resolution of the cross-strait issue, the United States would continue to provide Taiwan with sufficient arms to defend itself against Chinese threats. The Memorandum. The memo states that the “performance and quantity of military sales to Taiwan will depend solely on the threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.
China’s military has stepped up pressure on Taiwan in recent months, sending military aircraft and ships almost daily into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) and surrounding waters, and former Taiwanese Defense Minister Tsai Ming-hsien has called China’s provocations a quasi-act of war.
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