Taiwan backed down for decades on an implied US security guarantee (portrayal)
Washington:
The United States has agreed to sell four armed MQ-9 Reaper drones to Taiwan, the State Department said on Tuesday, helping to bolster the island’s defenses as China escalates threats.
The $ 600 million sale assists Taiwan “in continued efforts to modernize its military and maintain a credible defensive capability,” the State Department said.
It will also help maintain political stability and military balance in the region, the department said in a statement.
The sale covers four drones, ground stations and associated surveillance and communication equipment, but not the bombs or missiles usually associated.
The drone deal follows several other major arms packages to Taiwan announced in recent weeks worth $ 4.2 billion, including powerful Harpoon anti-ship missiles, SLAM-ER launch cruise missiles. aircraft, aerial reconnaissance technology and mobile light rocket launchers.
The sales angered Beijing, which views Taiwan as a separatist province since its separation from mainland China under an exiled government seven decades ago.
As Taiwan has for decades fallen back on an implicit US security guarantee, Washington has urged it to build its own capacity to resist a Chinese effort to take it back by force.
In recent months, the Chinese military has simulated amphibious landings in Taiwan-like territory and has repeatedly flown planes in the island’s airspace.
The US military has used the unmanned Reapers, manufactured by General Atomics, for long high-altitude reconnaissance missions and targeted attacks and assassinations of jihadists in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
The sale is the first since the U.S. government decided in July to partially depart from the 1987 missile technology control regime, in which 35 countries agreed to restrict sales of weapons delivery systems without pilot.
The decision was to allow the export of medium speed drones like the Reaper which had been blocked by the agreement.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
