TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China accused the United States of turning Taiwan into an “ammunition depot” after the White House announced a $345 million military aid package for Taipei, and the self-ruled island said Sunday it tracked six Chinese navy ships in waters off its shores.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement late Saturday opposing the military aid to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
“No matter how much of the ordinary people’s taxpayer money the … Taiwanese separatist forces spend, no matter how many U.S. weapons, it will not shake our resolve to solve the Taiwan problem. Or shake our firm will to realize the reunification of our motherland,” said Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office.
“Their actions are turning Taiwan into a powder keg and ammunition depot, aggravating the threat of war in the Taiwan Strait,” the statement said.
China’s People’s Liberation Army has increased its military maneuvers in recent years aimed at Taiwan, sending fighter jets and warships to circle the island.
On Sunday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it tracked six Chinese navy ships near the island.
Taiwan’s ruling administration, led by the Democratic Progressive Party, has stepped up its weapons purchases from the U.S. as part of a deterrence strategy against a Chinese invasion.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Taiwan has never been governed by China’s ruling Communist Party.
Unlike previous military purchases, the latest batch of aid is part of a presidential authority approved by the U.S. Congress last year to draw weapons from current U.S. military stockpiles — so Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales.
While Taiwan has purchased $19 billion worth of weaponry, much of it has yet to be delivered to Taiwan. Washington will send man-portable air defense systems, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles to Taiwan.
The island is already unified, they very clearly reject the CCPs authoritarian, violent demands.
Fuck the CCP, Taiwan is a free country.
Taiwan is a free country.
This is not the position Taiwan holds. Their own position is that Taiwan is an independently governed region of China.
It’s only westerners that keep saying it’s a country. They don’t say that themselves.
Come on, mate. People love to trot this one out as some kind of ‘both sides’ bullshit as well. They conveniently forget to mention that the CCP has written into law that they will invade immediately if Taiwan makes that declaration.
That law was only written in 2005, what about the 50 years before it?
Either way we know what people’s opinions are within Taiwan. They certainly don’t want unification, but they do want to maintain the status quo:
The “independence as soon as possible” crowd is almost as small as the “unification as soon as possible” crowd for being similarly out of their minds. And even all the bullshit that has been happening has not drastically changed people’s views. There was a brief “move towards independence” bump for a while between 2018 and 2020 but it has been declining as a result of the US’ involvement being too overt, it has been causing people to see it as something the US wants instead of something that’s good for them or something they want. More and more people are seeing it as the US interfering.
If a referendum happened for this. Independence would absolutely not win.
“the polling demonstrated below 10 percent appeal for a political union with China at some point in the future, while a separate political existence from Beijing was the desire of roughly two-thirds of the population.”
I was gonna say, loving the use of the word “unify”. I also feel like the AP could have editorialized just a bit at least for the headline and maybe gone with something more along the lines of “reclaim”.
