China Blasts US Military Aid to Taiwan 04/24 06:21

   China on Wednesday blasted the latest package of U.S. military assistance to 
Taiwan on Wednesday, saying that such funding was pushing the self-governing 
island republic into a "dangerous situation."

   BEIJING (AP) -- China on Wednesday blasted the latest package of U.S. 
military assistance to Taiwan on Wednesday, saying that such funding was 
pushing the self-governing island republic into a "dangerous situation."

   The U.S. Senate late Tuesday passed $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, 
Israel and Taiwan after months of delays and contentious debate over how 
involved the United States should be in foreign wars. China claims the entire 
island of Taiwan as its own territory and has threatened to take it by force if 
necessary.

   The mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office said the aid "seriously violates" U.S. 
commitments to China and "sends a wrong signal to the Taiwan independence 
separatist forces."

   Office spokesperson Zhu Fenglian added that Taiwan's ruling pro-independence 
Democratic Progressive Party, which won a third four-year presidential term in 
January, is willing to "become a pawn for external forces to use Taiwan to 
contain China, bringing Taiwan into a dangerous situation."

   On Tuesday, Taiwan's President-elect Lai Ching-te told a visiting U.S. 
Congressional delegation that the aid package would "strengthen the deterrence 
against authoritarianism in the West Pacific ally chain" and "help ensure peace 
and stability across the Taiwan Strait and also boost confidence in the region."

   The package has had broad congressional support since Biden first requested 
the money last summer. But congressional leaders had to navigate strong 
opposition from a growing number of conservatives who question U.S. involvement 
in foreign wars and argue that Congress should be focused instead on the surge 
of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

   The package covers a wide range of parts and services aimed at maintaining 
and and upgrading Taiwan's military hardware. Separately, Taiwan has signed 
billions in contracts with the U.S. for latest-generation F-16V fighter jets, 
M1 Abrams main battle tanks and the HIMARS rocket system, which the U.S. has 
also supplied to Ukraine.

   Taiwan has also been expanding its own defense industry, building submarines 
and trainer jets. Next month, it plans to commission its third and fourth 
domestically designed and built stealth corvettes to counter the Chinese navy 
as ptensions art of a strategy of asymmetrical warfare, in which a smaller 
force counters its larger opponent by using cutting edge or nonconventional 
tactics and weaponry.

   China launches daily incursions into waters and airspace around Taiwan by 
navy ships and warplanes. It has also sought to pick away Taiwan's few 
remaining formal diplomatic partners.

   However, only two People's Liberation Army Air Force planes and seven navy 
vessels were found operating in areas around Taiwan between Tuesday afternoon 
and Wednesday morning, possibly as a result of heavy rainstorms and low 
visibility overnight along the island's west coast facing China.

   At times of heightened tensions, China has launched dozens of such missions 
over a 24 hour period, many of them crossing the center line in the Taiwan 
Strait dividing the sides or entering Taiwan's air defense identification zone.