China says US ‘playing with fire’ by giving Taiwan more military aid
Related:
Why Should We Care About America’s Indo-Pacific Allies?, May 10, 2024:
We’re not obligated to defend Taiwan. What we are obligated to do is governed by the law and the law is the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.
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But defending Taiwan is not one of those things, but it means that we sell them equipment that they need to defend themselves and the like. And it makes it clear intent that we want a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan PRC issue, a peaceful resolution across the Taiwan Strait. And that we are opposed to a forceful reunification against the Taiwanese people’s will.
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Is the United States going to defend Taiwan? If the answer to that question is yes, they’re going to lose hundreds of thousands of troops in that fight and they ought to know that. And then they can then make the calculus whether it’s worth it or not.
— Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr., former commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command
U.S. Military Support for Taiwan in Five Charts
The United States describes Taiwan as a “key partner in the Indo-Pacific.” It does not have a treaty obligation to defend Taiwan and has not clarified as a matter of policy whether it would come to Taiwan’s direct defense if the island were attacked by China, although President Joe Biden has said on four occasions that he would. Washington maintains an intentionally vague policy in this regard—known as “strategic ambiguity”—in contrast to its explicit defense commitments to U.S. treaty allies in the region, namely Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. Without direct U.S. military intervention, most security analysts say China would be able to conquer Taiwan by force, albeit at a potentially considerable cost.
Text: “The Taiwan Relations Act does not commit the United States to come to the defense of Taiwan in the event of an attack,” Senator John Kerry (Democrat of Massachusetts) said in an April 25 speech to the Senate.
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