My Take | Taiwan is the gravy train of Pentagon generals
- When it comes to enlarging the already mind-boggling defence budget of the United States, now set to exceed three-quarters of a trillion US dollars, the China threat is the gift that keeps on giving
Almost every day, there is a new warning from America’s top brass against a People’s Liberation Army invasion of Taiwan, which could happen any time now. Though I have to say Hong Kong news sites seem to hang on to every word from those Pentagon chiefs than most mainstream news outlets in the United States.
One US admiral apparently thinks a PLA beachhead could be established in southern Taiwan in just a matter of hours.
My immediate response was: boy, the Americans must have been ripping off their Taiwanese military counterparts with all those billions and billions in – US, not Taiwan – dollars of hardware sold every few years to the self-ruled island if a successful invasion from the mainland may be so easily staged. Last year alone, it was US$5.1 billion.
For the life of me, I can’t imagine any sane person would actually want a hot war over Taiwan. But all that sabre-rattling from Washington suddenly makes sense when this news item flashes on my computer screen: the US$753 billion defence budget for 2022.
01:45
Taiwan unveils new amphibious assault and transport ship for service in the South China Sea
That’s more than three-quarters of a trillion. Of that, a whopping US$715 billion goes straight to the Pentagon.
Context in journalism should be as important as juicy headlines. Maybe I am just old school, but few local newspapers report the US defence budget, not as main news anyway.
