US to sign $345 million military aid package for Taiwan

The US is set to announce $345 million in military aid for Taiwan, two US officials said Friday. It would be the Biden administration’s first major package drawing on America’s own stockpiles under a new policy intended to speed up military aid to help Taiwan counter China. The package includes man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters ahead of the announcement. US lawmakers have been pressuring the Pentagon and White House to speed weapons to Taiwan, to help it counter China. The aid is part of a presidential authority approved by Congress last year to draw weapons from US military stockpiles to support Taiwan. This gets weapons delivered faster than providing funding for new weapons. The Pentagon has used a similar authority to get billions of dollars worth of munitions to Ukraine. Taiwan split from China in 1949 amid a civil war. Chinese President Xi Jinping maintains China’s right to take over the now self-ruled island, by force if necessary. Getting stockpiles of weapons to Taiwan now, before an attack begins, is one of the lessons the US has learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pentagon deputy defense secretary Kathleen Hicks told The Associated Press earlier this year. “Ukraine was more of a cold-start approach than the planned approach we have been working on for Taiwan, and we will apply those lessons,” Hicks said. Efforts to resupply Taiwan after a conflict erupted would be complicated because it is an island, she said.