Taiwan defence minister says no word from US on splitting stalled arms package

Taiwan's Defence Minister Wellington Koo said on Tuesday, 6 October, that Taipei has not been told of any US plan to break a pending arms package worth about US$14 billion into smaller batches. Speaking to reporters at the Legislative Yuan before attending a session there, Koo said Washington had repeatedly reaffirmed that its commitment to helping Taiwan strengthen its self-defence has not changed.

Koo said Taiwan respects the US review process and is continuing to coordinate with Washington, but has so far received no information about any so-called separate batches, according to Reuters. The China Times reported that he was responding to foreign media reports that some hawkish figures in Washington had suggested President Donald Trump handle the Taiwan sales in batches, and that Koo said the ministry would tell the public if it did receive such information.

Koo said the US had reaffirmed that commitment on the basis of the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances, the China Times reported. Reuters said the US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A package held back since May

Trump has held back approval of the new package to maintain warm relations and a fragile trade truce with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Reuters reported. He approved an US$11 billion package in December, and in May, after meeting Xi in Beijing, said he was holding up a second package, describing it as a very good negotiating chip in his dealings with Beijing. China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, has repeatedly called for the sales to end. Officials in Taipei had previously said Washington could split the sales into smaller pieces to avoid upsetting Beijing too much.

The idea has also been aired on the US side. AFP reported on 2 October that a US official had said it was increasingly likely the US$14 billion package, which includes the Patriot air defence system, would be broken up into smaller amounts to temper China's response. Experts cited by AFP believe approval is unlikely before the G20 summit in the United States in December, where Xi and Trump are expected to meet for the fourth time this year.

Closer exchanges with the US military

Koo also said that Taiwan and the United States have close exchanges in military and defence affairs, adding that this would help Taiwan's war-preparedness efforts and the transformation of its armed forces, Reuters reported. According to the China Times, he was asked about reports that experts from the policy office of the US Department of War and the Institute for Defense Analyses, a US defence think tank, are stationed long-term at the ministry's headquarters. He did not deny the reports, saying Taiwan draws on US combat experience and expert assessments, but declined to give details.

The remarks follow similar comments from Koo on 29 September, when he told reporters at the Legislative Yuan that Taipei had repeatedly received explanations from the US side that its Taiwan policy had not changed since the summit between Trump and Xi, and that it had received no notification of changes to pending sales cases, the Central News Agency reported.

Delivery delays on earlier orders remain a separate concern. Taiwan received its first two F-16V Block 70 fighters on 2 October under an US$8 billion deal for 66 aircraft that was due to be completed this year, and Koo said more would arrive before the end of the year without saying how many, AFP reported. On 29 September he said the air force was negotiating compensation with the US side because the full order cannot be delivered by the end of this year, according to the Central News Agency.

Reuters noted that Taiwan's Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung and former President Tsai Ing-wen are both in the United States this week. China's embassy in Washington said it firmly opposes official interactions of any form between Taiwan and the United States.