United States prepares to stand ground on Taiwan with defence spending bill
Legislation calls for Pentagon to help strengthen island’s resistance to invasion from the mainland
The US Congress is preparing to pass a defence spending bill that would implement a growing consensus in Washington to push back against Beijing, including forging closer ties with Taiwan.
The 2019 defence authorisation bill includes provisions aimed at curtailing China’s influence in Asia. Specifically, it calls for the Pentagon to adopt a more proactive role in assessing and strengthening Taiwan’s ability to resist an invasion from mainland China, which sees the democratically run island as a province.
China will also be permanently banned from Rim of the Pacific naval exercises – the world’s largest such drills that are held once every two years – unless it reverses its military activities on reefs and rocks in the disputed South China Sea. China says most of the waters are its sovereign territory, ignoring a 2016 ruling by an international tribunal that said the country’s claim had no legal standing.
The bill’s release coincides with the opening shots of a trade war as Trump imposes tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods to retaliate for what he says are unfair practices that have resulted in a huge trade imbalance with the US. China has warned the US against what it describes as a “cold war mentality” and called on the Americans to respect its core interests and solve disputes thorough negotiations.
Trump’s relationship with Taiwan has been a hot issue for China since he accepted a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen after his election and questioned the “one China” principle that underpins China-US relations. Since then, the US has approved US$1.3 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, and Trump has signed legislation to encourage senior US officials to visit the island, a move that would raise its diplomatic status. The US has also agreed to provide technology for the island’s submarine-building programme.
In a March address to China’s parliament, President Xi Jinping warned that efforts to widen divisions with Taiwan would be “punished by history”. The government has ordered all airlines to stop referring to Taiwan and the former colonies of Hong Kong and Macau as countries, something the White House described as “Orwellian nonsense”.