PFor Taiwan’s recently elected leader, the aid package — worth eight billion dollars (about 7.5 billion euros) — will also “help ensure peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and also to increase confidence in the region”.
The current vice president of Taiwan made this reference to two US congressmen visiting the island, Lisa McClain, a Republican, and Democrat Dan Kildee.
Also known as William Lai, a former US-trained medical researcher, Taiwan’s new leader is heavily criticized by Beijing for his opposition to political unification with the mainland.
In recent elections, pro-unification nationalists won a narrow majority in Parliament, but their influence on foreign policy and other domestic issues remains limited.
The US aid package — which is expected to be voted on and approved in the Senate on Tuesday — covers a wide range of services aimed at maintaining and upgrading Taiwan’s military equipment.
Separately, Taiwan has signed billion-dollar contracts with the US for next-generation F-16V fighter jets, M1 Abrams battle tanks and the HIMARS rocket system, which the US has also supplied to Ukraine.
Taiwan has also been expanding its own defense industry, building submarines and trainer planes.
Lai, from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, won the January elections by a landslide and next month replaces President Tsai Ing-wen, whom Beijing has sought to isolate for the past eight years.
China is determined to annex the island – which it considers its territory – by force if necessary, and has publicized this threat with daily incursions into the waters and airspace around Taiwan by navy ships and warplanes.
Although Washington and Taipei do not have formal diplomatic ties, in deference to Beijing, Congresswoman McClain stressed the need for the entire world to realize the relevance of the relationship between the two parties.
“Peace is our objective. But for that to happen we have to have an effective relationship, which we value. Not just militarily, but economically”, explained the congresswoman on an official visit to Taipei.
Read Also: US Senate votes today on aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
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