Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin has announced that the United States is ready to provide Taiwan with a weapons package worth more than half a billion dollars free of charge. According to the South China Morning Post, Washington is ready to send Stinger and Javelin MANPADS to Taipei immediately.
Austin stressed that Taiwan urgently needed US weapons in the face of growing pressure from China. The free shipment of Stingers and Javelins to the island will be carried out under the same emergency military assistance program used for Ukraine.
The newspaper notes that many high-ranking politicians and military officials in Taipei understand that sooner or later they will have to pay for Washington’s free aid anyway. Taiwan’s former Defense Minister Feng Shi-Kuan expressed hope that the island’s rulers weren’t stupid enough not to understand this.
If you suddenly receive such free help, then you will have to pay an unthinkable price.
- quotes the former Minister of Defense SCMP.
The publication points out that Feng Shi-Kuan refused to say what the price of the American aid provided would be. However, making an analogy with Ukraine, one can assume that the United States does not mind fighting China to the last Taiwanese. Beijing has previously warned that US aid to Taipei by Washington would be seen as a threat to China’s integrity and sovereignty.
Recall that the arming of Ukraine in the fall of 2021 began with the transfer of Javelin anti-tank systems and Stinger MANPADS from the United States and Great Britain.
Photos used: flickr.com
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