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US shows support to Taiwan via warship patrol and IT pact

蘋果日報 2020/12/20 06:37


The United States has sent a destroyer to sail through the Taiwan Strait for the 12th time this year and signed a technology deal with the Taiwanese government in the past week, in a show of strengthened ties and support.
The USS Mustin, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, had passed through the strait, the Seventh Fleet of the U.S. Navy announced on Saturday.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense confirmed the military patrol, saying its forces had monitored the warship.
U.S. Secretary of Navy Kenneth Braithwaite mentioned earlier that one of the missions of the Seventh Fleet, positioned in the Indo-Pacific, was to patrol the strait and the South China Sea. The last time a Pentagon warship passed through the strait 12 times within a year was in 2016.
In a separate development, the U.S. and Taiwan on Tuesday signed a scientific and technological cooperation agreement, the first result of their Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue last month.
“The fact that the agreement was signed within a month after the dialogue demonstrated that the Taiwan-U.S. partnership is marked with a high level of mutual trust and close cooperation,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu said on Friday.
The U.S. Department of State also made a statement about the pact, calling Taiwan a “trusted partner” which “holds true to the values of democracy and freedom.”
Analysts suggest U.S. President Donald Trump may be trying to shore up ties with Taiwan before his term ends, to prevent the incoming administration of Joe Biden reversing his anti-China policy.
Biden would unlikely take a softer stance on China, according to research director Hui Ching of the Hong Kong Zhi Ming Institute.
Instead, Hui suggested, Biden might even be more active than Trump in containing China. Although the U.S. had increased interactions with Taiwan, Hui said, the country had not upped its economic or military support to the island so far. Taiwan was still largely on its own in defending itself against mainland China, he added.
The largest U.S. arms sale to Taiwan happened when Lee Teng-hui was president of the island, Hui said. It remained unmatched by the quality and quantity of arms Trump had sold to Taiwan so far, he pointed out. But even if the U.S. was willing to increase its arms sales, Taiwan did not have the money to buy enough weapons to contend with mainland China. Most importantly, unlike Japan or South Korea, Taiwan had no mutual defense treaty with the U.S., said Hui.
The island’s economy depended very much on mainland China, Hui noted. If the U.S. really wanted to support Taiwan, it should open its market to the Taiwanese, he said. “Instead, the U.S. is asking Taiwan to open up its market to its pork products.”
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