Washington is doing everything in its power to ensure that Taiwan can withstand any potential attack, by supporting its indigenous military industry, expediting “third-party transfers,” and helping the island boost its “asymmetric” deterrence capabilities, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.
“When it comes to Taiwan itself, we are determined to make sure that it has all necessary means to defend itself against any potential aggression, including unilateral action by China to disrupt the status quo that’s been in place for many decades,” Blinken said on Tuesday in a testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Blinken noted that the US has made or facilitated nearly $20 billion in arms sales and $2.5 billion in direct commercial sales to Taiwan since 2017. “We’ve been expediting third-party transfers to Taiwan,” he added. “We’ve been supporting indigenous industrial defense capability. And we are focused on helping them think about how to strengthen asymmetric capabilities, again as a deterrent.”
The committee’s chairman, Senator Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey), warned that if China were to seize Taiwan, it would gain a stranglehold on the world’s high-end semiconductor market. He estimated that Taiwan produces 90 percent of all high-end semiconductors globally.