The US government is considering a joint arms production plan with Taiwan, a trade lobby said on Wednesday, an initiative to speed up arms transfers to bolster Taiwan’s deterrence against China. US presidents have approved more than $20 billion in arms sales to Taiwan since 2017 as China has stepped up military pressure on the democratically-ruled island, which Beijing claims as its own territory.
However, Taiwan and the US Congress have warned of delivery delays due to supply chain difficulties and backlogs caused by increased demand for some systems due to the war in Ukraine. “It’s very early in the process,” Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, which counts a number of U.S. defense suppliers among its members, said of the plan.
Hammond-Chambers said it had not yet been determined which weapons would be considered as part of the effort, though it would likely focus on providing Taiwan with more ammunition and long-established missile technology. But he warned that any such move would require arms manufacturers to obtain co-production licenses from the State and Defense Departments. Hammond-Chambers added that there could be resistance within the US government to issuing co-production licenses due to uncertainty about approving critical technology for a foreign platform.
“It’s a piece of the puzzle, not a game changer,” Hammond-Chambers told Reuters after the plan was first reported by Japan’s Nikkei newspaper, citing three unidentified sources. Taiwan’s foreign ministry declined to comment but reiterated that the Taiwan-U.S. relations were both “close and friendly”. The options would include providing the United States with technology to make weapons in Taiwan or making the weapons in the United States using Taiwanese parts, the Nikkei report added.
Asked about the effort, a US State Department spokesman said: “The United States is considering all options to ensure the rapid transfer of defense capabilities to Taiwan.” “The rapid provision of Taiwan’s defense weapons and support by the United States through foreign military sales and direct commercial sales is critical to Taiwan’s security, and we will continue to work with industry to support this goal,” the spokesman said.
News of the plan came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a forum at Stanford University on Monday that “Beijing was committed to pursuing reunification (with Taiwan) in a much faster time frame”, although he did not specify a date. Chinese leader Xi Jinping said on Sunday that China would never give up its right to use force over Taiwan, but would seek a peaceful solution.
Taiwan’s presidential office said this week that Taiwan would not back down on its sovereignty and freedom and democracy, but that meeting on the battlefield was out of the question. US officials have been pushing Taiwan to modernize its military so it can become a “porcupine” that is difficult for China to attack. US officials have criticized Beijing for using House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August as a pretext to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait by stepping up military exercises nearby.
