It calls for the US to continue supporting the “development of capable, ready and modern defence forces necessary for Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defence capability”. It also asks the US to conduct practical training and military exercises with Taiwan, including “as appropriate, inviting Taiwan to participate in the Rim of the Pacific exercise conducted in 2022”.

The measure, which authorises US$770 billion for the US Defence Department, also recommends that before mid-February the Pentagon briefs congressional committees on the feasibility and advisability of enhanced cooperation between the National Guard and Taiwan.

Taiwanese authorities – including the Presidential Office and the defence and foreign ministries – lauded the US move as proof of “rock solid” relations between Washington and Taipei, saying the island would continue to work with the US and other like-minded countries to contribute to peace, stability and prosperity across the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region.

As a result of the new defence law, collaboration between Taiwan and the US will expand this year, observers say.

“There should be more high-level military exchanges between the two sides, and the scale of cooperation, like dispatching senior officers to Taiwan to help train Taiwanese forces, or Taiwan military personnel receiving training in the US would increase,” said Wang Ting-yu, a legislator who sits on the foreign affairs and defence committee.

He said the law showed the US government’s support for Taiwan in deterring any attempts at military adventure by Beijing.

Chieh Chung, a senior researcher at the National Policy Research Foundation, a think tank for Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, said that with Biden following his predecessor Donald Trump in treating Beijing as a threat, there should be no doubt the US would follow the NDAA’s recommendations regarding Taiwan.

In a recent report to the legislature, Taiwan’s defence ministry confirmed it was working to invite high-level US military officials to visit the island after the pandemic has eased to discuss defence development and other cooperative efforts.

“Based on the discussions, [Taiwan] would work out plans to facilitate exchanges and purchase of advanced weapons that can meet Taiwan’s combat needs,” said the report, which was sent to the legislature on December 26.

On National Guard cooperation, the US has also initially supported setting up a regular exchange and coordination window. The US would first send National Guard members to train their Taiwanese counterparts, according to the ministry. The following year, Taiwan would send its people to the US to observe the National Guard training.

But observers said the US might be hesitant to invite Taiwan to participate in Rimpac 2022 because it would escalate US-China and cross-strait tensions.

Chieh said it was “not only that the provisions about Taiwan in the NDAA are non-binding, but the Biden government also has to take into account the reaction of Beijing and its one-China policy”.

He said that although the Pentagon had sent officers to train Taiwanese forces and had allowed the island’s military personnel to train in the US, these were done between the two sides “privately and quietly”.

Unlike these bilateral exchanges, Rimpac involves a number of countries taking part, Chieh said.

According to a statement in December by the US Navy’s Third Fleet in San Diego, which oversees Rimpac, the war games are expected to take place next summer and to include more than 48 military units from 20 nations and 25,000 personnel. Taiwan has never been invited to the exercise, which is held every two years. Beijing was invited to take part in 2014 and 2016 but was disinvited in 2018 because of rising US-China tensions over the South China Sea.

“The 2021 NDAA also called for the US to invite Taiwan to take part in Rimpac, but the Trump administration made no action for the invitation despite the fact that Trump opted for a more antagonising policy towards Beijing than Biden,” Chieh said.

He said the White House was sensitive when it came to issues it perceived to be at odds with the one-China policy, as evidenced by the abrupt cut of Taiwanese digital minister Audrey Tang’s video feed during Biden’s “Summit for Democracy” in early December.

Tang’s presentation included a colour-coded map from the South African non-governmental organisation Civicus, ranking the world by openness on civil rights. Most of Asia was shown, with Taiwan coloured green, making it the only regional entity portrayed as “open”, while all the others, including several US allies and partners, were labelled “closed,” “repressed,” “obstructed” or “narrowed”.

The White House was concerned that differentiating Taiwan and China on a map in a US-hosted conference – to which Taiwan had been invited in a show of support – could be seen as being at odds with Washington’s one-China policy, Reuters quoted unnamed sources as saying.

The US State Department later said “confusion” over screen-sharing resulted in Tang’s video feed being dropped, calling it “an honest mistake”.

01:17

Taiwan army conducts live-fire exercise to test combat readiness and firepower

Taiwan army conducts live-fire exercise to test combat readiness and firepower

Carl Schuster, former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, told CNN that Rimpac involvement was a political statement as much as a professional opportunity.

“The invitation, should it take place, marks Taiwan as a friend and partner of the United States,” he said, adding that the new US defence law signalled “a strong politico-strategic statement that has its roots in China’s escalating aggression against Taiwan” and other nations in the Indo-Pacific region.

But any Taiwanese involvement in Rimpac, he told CNN, would “send a strong political signal to Beijing that its behaviour created this and has raised the potential cost should it choose the military aggression route”.