My Take | Latest US military aid to Taiwan is a dangerous provocation
- By using the drawdown authority that enables rapid arming of a friendly country, Washington is pushing the world towards potential conflict
The latest military aid to Taiwan is putting the United States on a warpath. It’s not the size of the aid package or the kinds of weapons that are being provided, but the manner in which it is being offered to the island.
It is a direct, deliberate and dangerous provocation. All countries in Asia, perhaps even around the world, really need to question the wisdom or rather blind dogmatism by which Washington is pushing the region if not the world into a global conflagration.
The latest US$345 million military aid package for Taiwan will allow weapons to be taken directly from the US military stockpiles and sent to the island.
But that is only a third of about US$1 billion in military aid to Taiwan as part of the current-year US government budget by citing, for the first time, the drawdown authority of the US president. And since it comes with no-interest loans worth up to US$10 billion, it’s essentially free weapons.
It is, of course, one thing to sell expensive, outdated and delayed-delivery weapons to the island; it’s something else entirely handing them over for free.
It is the same presidential drawdown authority that has been used to provide some of the world’s most advanced weapons to Ukraine to use in its conflict with Russia.
The symbolism is obvious. The US is drawing an explicit moral equivalence – completely false according to many independent analysts and foreign leaders, and presumably even some within the US government – that mainland China is ready to invade Taiwan as if the island is already an independent country under siege.
