US Senate committee clears bill that would bolster US ties to Taiwan
- Taiwan Policy Act is considered ‘most comprehensive restructuring of US policy towards Taiwan’ since 1979
- Lawmakers have become increasingly alarmed that, under the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Beijing is growing more hostile towards Taiwan
New legislation to solidify Washington’s close but unofficial relationship with Taiwan cleared a key Senate committee on Wednesday, an important step on its path to becoming law.
The bill, called the Taiwan Policy Act, has been described by lawmakers as “the most comprehensive restructuring of US policy towards Taiwan” since Washington normalised relations with Beijing and cut off official ties with Taipei in 1979.
The bill includes billions of dollars in funding for Taiwan’s military; sanctions against China’s top political leadership and biggest banks if Beijing engages in a “significant escalation in aggression” to take “physical or political control” of Taiwan, including by a naval blockade, a major cyberattack or by seizing Taiwan’s outlying islands; and treatment for Taipei as a “major non-Nato ally” of the US for purposes of weapons transfers to the island – a title held by Israel, Japan and South Korea, among other nations.
It would also allow Taiwanese officials to display their government’s emblems and symbols – including the Republic of China flag – in meetings with Americans, and would also recommend, but not require, changing the name of Taipei’s de facto embassy in Washington to the “Taiwan Representative Office”. It would also recommend that the US “provide the people of Taiwan with de facto diplomatic treatment equivalent to foreign countries”.
And it would expedite weapons sales to Taiwan while also boosting US military cooperation with the island.
“Today’s strong, bipartisan vote not only signals our unwavering support for the Taiwanese people, but our recognition of the pivotal role that the United States Congress must play in confronting these challenges,” said Senator Bob Menendez, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee and an author of the bill, which was approved 17-5.
“We are carefully and strategically lowering the existential threats facing Taiwan by raising the cost of taking the island by force so that it becomes too high a risk and unachievable,” Menendez added.
