In Taiwan, visiting lawmakers say U.S. support is strong
Visiting US lawmakers sought to assure Taiwan on Thursday that the United States would stick with it despite pressure from China, although a bill including aid for the island was rejected. stuck in Congress, and the division over aid to Ukraine has raised broader questions about Washington's commitment to its partners.
“Today we come as Democrats and Republicans to express bipartisan support for this partnership,” Representative Mike Gallagher, the Wisconsin Republican leading the congressional delegation to Taiwan, told President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei, the capital. Journalists were allowed to witness the first remarks during the meeting between Ms Tsai and the delegation before they were led out.
The five MPs in the delegation — all members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which Mr. Gallagher heads — are the latest in a recent series of American visitors to express support for Taiwan, at a time when leaders in Washington are also trying to tighten security to strengthen support for Ukraine and Israel.
Taiwan, which has no formal diplomatic ties with the United States, has often turned to U.S. lawmakers for support, and a Capitol dispute over military aid to Ukraine has highlighted the influence Congress can have on the use of U.S. power in Abroad.
Ms. Tsai told lawmakers — including two other Republicans, John Moolenaar of Michigan and Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, and two Democrats, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts. – that their visit “further highlights the close cooperation between Taiwan and the United States.”
“We hope to see even more exchanges between Taiwan and the United States in a range of areas in the new year,” Ms. Tsai said. “We will work with even more like-minded countries to strengthen the resilience of global democratic supply chains and contribute to development and prosperity around the world.”
Mr. Krishnamoorthi, the committee’s top Democrat, told Ms. Tsai that the bipartisan nature of the delegation “shows you the strength of our partnership.”
Taiwan is still three months away from a presidential transition, and officials fear it will soon see economic retaliation and an intimidating display of military force from China, which treats the country as a breakaway region that must eventually embrace unification — by force, if the leaders in Beijing decide to do so. is necessary.
Both Ms Tsai and the newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, are members of the Democratic Progressive Party, which has emphasized Taiwan's status as separate from China, although it has stopped short of implementing formal independence, which Beijing has warned about could provoke an armed conflict. China, no friend of Ms. Tsai, appears even more hostile to Mr. Lai, who does described himself years ago as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwanese independence.”
Mr. Lai has said he will follow Ms. Tsai's measured approach toward China and not try to change Taiwan's status quo, but Chinese officials have already signaled they see little room for negotiations with the new president.
Officials in Taiwan are closely monitoring the political situation in the United States, especially as presidential elections loom in November, experts say. Many in Taiwan see the United States as an essential partner in the face of Chinese threats. But there is also an undercurrent of doubt about the US commitment, reinforced by propaganda from China, and some in Taiwan argue it has become too entangled in the rivalry between Beijing and Washington.
a proposed US supplementary budget approved by the Senate, which provides aid to Ukraine and Israel, also provides aid to Taiwan, including $1.9 billion that could help open the country's access to U.S. weapons supplies.
But Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson has indicated he will not bring the bill to a vote in the House of Representatives. And billions of dollars in Taiwanese orders for American weapons are already behindThis reflects the pressure on the US military industrial base that existed before it began sending weapons to Ukraine.
“The conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and in the Middle East have people concerned about whether something will happen in the Taiwan Strait,” he said. Shu Hsiao Huang, a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, which is funded by Taiwan's Ministry of Defense. “People are concerned about whether these things can be delivered to Taiwan as planned.”
Mr. Shu said the island “absolutely welcomes members of the United States Congress visiting Taiwan. But now we are more concerned about the problem of delayed deliveries.”
China has increasingly engaged in military activities around Taiwan in recent years, sometimes escalating them to show its displeasure. But since Mr Lai won Taiwan's presidential election in January, no major exercises have been held in the area. However, Taiwanese officials have said this could change as the May 20 inauguration approaches.
This week, the Chinese coast guard held patrols near Kinmen, a Taiwan-controlled island near the Chinese coast, after two Chinese men were killed in the area. The men were on a Chinese boat that entered Taiwanese waters around Kinmen and were killed by Taiwanese coast guards chased the ship, which capsized. Taiwan has said it is investigating the incident.
Earlier this year, Chinese authorities said unilaterally changed an air route that Taiwanese commercial flights take over the strait between the two sides. Officials in Taipei denounced the measure, saying it could make flying in the area more dangerous.
Even as Republican lawmakers have grown increasingly skeptical about aid to Ukraine, many of them endorse military support for Taiwan as a bulwark against China, which they see as a primary threat to the United States. Still, several policy experts said an end to U.S. aid to Ukraine could be unsettling for Taiwan.
Ms. Tsai and other Taiwanese politicians have often expressed solidarity with Ukraine, And Public support in Taiwan for stepping up preparations for a possible Chinese attack increased after the Russian invasion two years ago. The Biden administration has said Ukraine's recent withdrawal from the city of Avdiivka reflected Congress's inability to provide additional money to support the war effort.
“An important foreign affairs group in Taiwan is paying close attention to developments in Ukraine,” I-Chung Lai, the chairman of the Prospect Foundation, a Taipei think tank with ties to the Democratic Progressive Party, said in an interview. “Our view is that a defeat of Ukraine will embolden China, and will discredit not just NATO, but actually the entire Western democracies, and will have a psychological impact in Taiwan.”
Mr. Gallagher appears well positioned to address any concerns in Taiwan. A former Marine, he has argued that the United States must increase weapons production to deter its adversaries.
Early 2023, he became the founding chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which has called for a strong counter to Beijing's global influence. But Mr. Gallagher said this month that he would not seek re-election to Congress.