US preps military aid package for Taiwan to confront China

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WASHINGTON – The Pentagon will soon send a security assistance package to Taiwan, using the same drawdown authority the US has relied on to provide Ukraine around three dozen aid tranches since Russia invaded early last year, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Congress this week.

The package – which is expected to total roughly $500 million – will be the first to come from the $1 billion in military aid that Congress authorized President Biden to send Taiwan from US stocks as part of the fiscal year 2023 budget.

"This is part of our long-standing commitment to upholding our obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act and other US policies and doing our part to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," Austin told a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday.

The move is bound to draw the ire of Beijing as US-China tensions simmer. Chinese President Xi Jinping has made "reunification" with the self-governing island the nation's top goal, and his administration regularly speaks out against any contact between Washington and Taipei.

"Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters on Wednesday.

"China's position on the Taiwan question is consistent and clear."

Dwindling stockpile

While this is the first drawdown aid package announced for Taiwan, the US has sent Ukraine at least 35 military aid parcels since Moscow's forces invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.

Some Republican lawmakers, most notably Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), have been critical of US aid for Kyiv, arguing that the US should prioritize assisting Taiwan due to the threat China poses to national security.

"Seizing Taiwan is Beijing's next step toward dominating the Indo-Pacific region," Hawley said in December.

"We must not let this happen. Averting the real and growing threat from China requires us to expedite delivery to Taiwan of the weapons it needs to defend itself."

The US has no intention of ending its support of Ukraine, which is gearing up for an expected counteroffensive later this year.

But to keep up the supply to both nations, Austin said the Pentagon will need Congress to approve more funds to restock American weapons reserves, which take a hit with every drawdown package announced.

That could be accomplished through a supplemental spending bill, which is what lawmakers did last year.

"We will absolutely need to have the appropriations to replace those things which we provide," Austin explained.

"We won't hesitate to come forward and ask for what we need to make sure that we maintain our stocks."

Austin did not say what kinds of weapons and equipment the US will send Taiwan, but Taipei for months has complained of delays in US deliveries of items such as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles as the defense industry worked to keep up with demands from Ukraine.

He also did not give a timeline for the aid, but the US traditionally relies on presidential drawdown authorities to swiftly get weapons where they’re needed by sourcing them from US stockpiles instead of ordering them new.

"Presidential drawdown [is] critical in our efforts to provide Taiwan what it needs to forge self-defense going forward," Austin said.

"We are working on that initiative and we hope to have an action forthcoming here and in the near term."

‘Porcupine’ deterrence

Defense experts the week said the package will likely include equipment to deter Beijing from sending its military to invade the island, rather than arming Taiwan with "ready to fight tonight" aid.

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The idea would be to create a "porcupine" effect, deterring Beijing from launching a ground assault by sending assistance before a war breaks out, Center for Naval Analyses research program director Jonathan Schroden told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

The "porcupine" term comes from a "resistance operating concept" used in Eastern Europe to deter Russia from invading the Baltics and other countries in the region, Schroden said.

"The colloquial idea is to turn those countries into … hedgehogs or porcupines to the Russian bear," Schroden said.

"So now there's right there's a lot of discussion about is there a way that we could turn Taiwan into a porcupine-looking Island to the Chinese."

The idea already has support in Congress. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), who recently returned from a visit to Taiwan, told Austin on Tuesday that the island needs to become a figurative porcupine "sooner rather than later."

It's the opposite of what the US did for Ukraine in the months leading up to Russia's invasion.

In that case, the Biden administration failed to deter Moscow in part because it chose to send weapons quietly to avoid provoking Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

"We did a drawdown [on] Labor Day before the war started – the aggression started," Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the appropriations committee on Tuesday.

"We did another one [on] Christmas – we did it quietly, so as not to give the Russian some excuse."

But Blinken went on to defend that decision, nothing that the packages sent to Ukraine in 2021 prepared Kyiv's forces to thwart Russia's goal of taking the Ukrainian capital.

"We did drawdowns of critical equipment well before the Russian aggression because we saw it coming [and] to make sure that the Ukrainians had in hand what they needed to repel that aggression," Blinken said.

"… As a result, the Stingers, the Javelins that they hadn't had [before the US packages] allowed them to repel the attack against Kyiv."