US military planes’ Taiwan visits signal new tactic to Beijing, analysts say

Name: US sends 2.5 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan
Uploaded: 2021-07-20T11:30:17.000Z
Duration: 1 min 34 s
Description: US sends 2.5 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan

Series of landings in Taipei by US military aircraft took deliveries to Sandra Oudkirk, new director of the American Institute in Taiwan

Washington wants to indicate it is strengthening its approach to the island, according to analyst

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An American C-130 military plane lands in Taipei on Monday to deliver diplomatic pouches. Photo: Handout

Kristin Huang

Published: 7:30pm, 20 Jul 2021Updated: 10:02pm, 20 Jul 2021

The United States’ deployment of military aircraft to Taiwan in recent weeks is a new tactic to reinforce its relations with the island, analysts said.

The tactic, using military aircraft to perform diplomatic actions, signalled the White House’s position while avoiding a serious confrontation with mainland China, they said, after a third such plane landed in Taipei on Tuesday.

On Monday, a US aircraft landed at Taoyuan International Airport to deliver diplomatic pouches to Sandra Oudkirk, the new director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the US’ de facto embassy in Taipei. The C-130 plane, a military transport aircraft, did not have a US Air Force sign and was chartered by the AIT.

Four days earlier, last Thursday, a US military C-146A Wolfhound departed from Kadena Air Force base in Okinawa, Japan, and arrived in Taipei the same morning, also to deliver a package to Oudkirk.

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US sends 2.5 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan

Early last month, a delegation of US senators visited Taiwan to announce the donation to the self-ruled island of 750,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines.

“These highly publicised flights look purely diplomatic in nature and probably do not have a military dimension,” said Ben Ho, a military analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “They seem to be steady and incremental measures to show America’s desire to intensify relations with Taiwan while still adhering to Washington’s one-China policy.