SEOUL, South Korea — The Taiwanese government confirmed Thursday that the Trump administration is selling $11 billion worth of arms to the democratically governed island, including mobile and rocket artillery, anti-armor weapons and battlefield command-and-control systems.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense expressed “sincere gratitude” to the U.S., noting in a statement on its website that the Trump administration has made a “notification to Congress” to process the sale. The U.S. State Department had announced the arms sale late Wednesday during a nationally televised address by President Trump.
The weapons sale is likely to anger the communist government of China, which regards Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory.
The announced package of arms — including drones, howitzers and medium-range missiles — is more costly and massive than the $330 million U.S. sale of aircraft parts to Taiwan the Trump administration conducted in November. It is also larger than any weapons deal for Taiwan approved during the Biden administration.
In response Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry said: “China firmly opposes and strongly condemns” the sale and “urges the U.S. to … immediately stop the dangerous act of arming Taiwan.”
Most members of the international community, which have official diplomatic relations with Beijing but not with Taipei, formally adhere to the “One China” principle. But there is low-key disquiet in many democratic capitals, given China’s increasingly powerful navy and Taiwan’s critical role in the global semiconductor supply chain.
That disquiet has been amplified by U.S. sources who allege that Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered Beijing’s forces to be invasion-capable in 2027.
China is upgrading its amphibious forces, including creating a flotilla of specialized bridging vessels and drilling with civilian ferries.
In September, leaks showed that Beijing had signed an agreement with Moscow — which operates a massive paratroop arm, the VDV — to upgrade its air-assault and airborne special forces.
The weapons in the U.S. package for Taiwan are mobile, tactical artillery systems that are suitable for coastal defense and beach combat and infantry anti-armor systems that are ideal for destroying mobile enemy forces that come ashore at close range.
The arms include the HIMARS Long Range Precision Strike System and the M109A7 self-propelled howitzer.
The former has proven its use in Ukraine as a land-based weapon, and tests in Australia this year proved specialist HIMARS missiles can strike ships at a range of 300km — far wider than the Taiwan Strait.
The latter is a core component of combined armored forces, though experience in Ukraine has found armor highly vulnerable to drone strikes.
TOW wire-guided missiles, often mounted on wheeled vehicles such as Jeeps, and shoulder-fired Javelin missiles, allow infantry to engage enemy armor. Both are ideal for fighting in build-up areas, such as urbanized and industrialized areas of Taiwan.
Altius loitering munitions, or suicide drones, are also included. Offering four hours of flight time, they can be launched from land or air.
Spare parts for military helicopters and technical support for Harpoon anti-ship missiles are also included. The Harpoon is a coastal defense weapon that can range the Taiwan Strait.
Also included in the package are the Taiwan Tactical Network, or TTN, and the Team Awareness Kit, or TAK.
The TTN, a military digital network, is a hardware-software system that provides combat commanders with real-time data while integrating different weapons. The TAK is a software system that syncs with the TTN, providing secure communications and situational awareness.
One expert considered the package’s artillery assets to be especially prickly.
“HIMARS deservea special note because of its range and precision — it can easily reach across the Taiwan Strait,” said Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel. “Imagine the invasion force having its ships cracked in half before they even leave port.”
The mobility of the HIMARS launchers and the self-propelled howitzers offer Taiwanese commanders tactical flexibility.
“Taiwan’s terrain is such that any defense is a coastal defense, but at the same time there’s room, so Taiwan forces can be deployed to conduct a more mobile defense to hit targets at sea, on the beach, and farther ashore if they get that far,” said Mr. Newsham, author of 2023’s “When China Attacks.” “The key has been to change Taiwan thinking away from static, fixed defense and into some dispersed and mobile, and with initiative being passed down to very low levels.”
Earlier this week, Taipei announced it was adopting a dispersed command system.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not hold its tongue.
The U.S. arms sale “… infringes on China’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, undermines peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and sends a gravely wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces,” spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a press conference Thursday in Beijing.
“Taiwanese independence separatist forces” is Beijing code for Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s Democratic Progressive Party.
However, the new American arms package is just one of the barriers that Beijing’s forceful regional assertiveness is raising in front of its own policy.
Governments in Manila and Tokyo are upgrading the defenses of strategic islands that flank Taiwan to its southwest and northeast. These developments could obviate a Chinese naval envelopment strategy.
Mr. Guo also raised his voice against Japan’s military build-up in the Ryukyu Islands, which dominate naval straits northeast of Taiwan.
“Is the Japanese side once again going down the wrong path of militarism to a dead end laid out by the right-wing forces?” he asked.
Taiwan’s communications were more upbeat.
“The Presidential Office is sincerely grateful to the U.S. government for once again demonstrating that it continues to fulfill its security commitments in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances,” Taiwanese Presidential Spokesperson Karen Kuo said, per an online statement.
The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act compels the U.S. government of the day to provide the island with the defensive weapons necessary for it to resist force. The “Six Assurances” of 1982 include a provision not to halt arms sales to Taiwan, nor to consult with China on those sales.
Ms. Kuo also stated that Taiwan will raise defense spending to over 3% of GDP this year, and “aims for this figure to reach five percent by 2030.”
That, however, cannot be guaranteed.
Some figures in Washington have criticized Taipei for not putting more resources into its military, which is dwarfed by China’s forces.
However, Mr. Lai’s government is shackled.
The Legislative Yuan, which controls the budget, is controlled by the main opposition Kuomintang Party and minor opposition parties, which take a softer line toward Beijing than do Mr. Lai and his DPP.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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