Taipei, Taiwan — An $8 billion defense package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives over the weekend “will strengthen deterrence against authoritarianism in the Western Pacific chain of allies,” Taiwan’s president-elect Lai said Tuesday. Ching-te, referring to its key rival, China.
The funding will also “help ensure peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and will also increase confidence in the region,” Lai, Taiwan’s current vice president, told Michigan Reps. Lisa McClain, a Republican, and Democrat Dan Kildee, in a meeting in the Presidential Office. Building in the capital Taipei.
In the face of “authoritarian expansionism,” Taiwan is “determined to safeguard democracy and also safeguard our homeland,” Lai said.
Also known as William Lai, the American-educated former medical researcher is despised by Beijing for his opposition to political unification with the mainland. In recent elections, pro-unification nationalists won a narrow majority in the legislature, but their influence on foreign policy and other domestic issues remains limited.
The Senate will vote Tuesday on $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
The package covers a wide range of parts and services aimed at maintaining and improving Taiwan’s military equipment. Separately, Taiwan has signed billions in contracts with the United States for next-generation F-16V fighter jets, M1 Abrams main battle tanks and the HIMARS rocket system, which the United States has also supplied to Ukraine.
Taiwan has also been expanding its own defense industry, building submarines and training aircraft. Next month it plans to order its third and fourth domestically designed and built stealth corvettes to counter the Chinese navy. as part of an asymmetric warfare strategy in which a smaller force counters its larger opponent using cutting-edge or unconventional tactics and weaponry.
Lai, of the ruling pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, handily won the January election and next month will succeed President Tsai Ing-wen, whom Beijing has tried to isolate for the past eight years.
China is determined to annex the island, which it considers its own territory, by force if necessary and has been announcing that threat with daily incursions into the waters and airspace around Taiwan by ships and warplanes. It has also sought to eliminate Taiwan’s few remaining formal diplomatic partners.
While Washington and Taipei do not have formal diplomatic ties out of deference to Beijing, McClain emphasized the need for the entire world to note the strength of the relationship.
“Peace is our goal. But to do that, we have to have relationships and we value your relationship. “Not only militarily, but also economically,” she said.
Kildee said the timing of the visit was especially significant given the recent passage of the funding bill to “provide very important support to ensure security in this region.”
“It’s important to the people of Taiwan, it’s important to the people of the United States, it’s important to the entire world,” Kildee said.