Tag: Mike Gallagher

China’s neighbors are buying US weapons Washington isn’t delivering

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

China’s neighbors are buying US weapons Washington isn’t delivering

Even though the United States views these weapons sales as integral to deterring China from attacking Taiwan, some of the deals were publicly announced as far back as 2017.

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The reasons – government delays, supply chain issues and production requirements – are numerous, and the problem won’t be easy to fix, Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Defense News.

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The U.S. government has approved the sale of 10 weapons systems Taiwan has yet to receive – some of which are not slated for delivery until the end of the decade.

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The United States has flooded billions of dollars in weapons into Ukraine, including items that are part of Taiwan’s backlog, such as Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and High Mobile Artillery Rocket Systems.

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For example, several Middle Eastern and eastern European countries are ahead of Taiwan in Lockheed Martin’s F-16 production queue. In 2019, the State Department approved an $8 billion Taiwan sale for 66 F-16s, but Taipei does not expect to receive the aircraft until 2026.

“Saudi Arabia is still ahead of Taiwan on the priority list in some cases,” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., told Defense News ahead of a July meeting with Taiwan’s Washington envoy. “We need to take a look at that.”

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Lost In Translations – The Dangers Of Being Misled By Them

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Lost In Translations – The Dangers Of Being Misled By Them

The issue of errors in translations, innocent as well as intentionally misleading ones, may soon become an even bigger issue. The U.S. Congress is providing money to produce many more of them:

The House bill introduced by Democratic Representatives Joaquin Castro and Bill Keating and Republicans Mike Gallagher and Brian Fitzpatrick would provide for the establishment of a federally funded Open Translation and Analysis Center (OTAC) focused on China.

It would be based on the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), which provided translation and analysis of Soviet bloc and other foreign government media during the Cold War.

The bill calls for funding of $80 million for fiscal 2022 and that same amount annually for each fiscal year through 2026 as well as “such sums as may be necessary for each fiscal year thereafter.”

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Referring to the acronyms of the People’s Republic of China and its ruling Communist Party and armed forces, the aide said OTAC would “systematically translate PRC/CCP/PLA speeches, documents, reports, strategies, news articles, commentaries, journal articles, procurement contracts into English and publish them freely online.”

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Castro said that for the United States “to effectively both compete and cooperate with” countries like China and Russia it needed a better understanding of them.

“A nuanced understanding of foreign countries is impossible without reading how they communicate in their own languages,” he told Reuters.