The United States is forced to delay weapons supply to Taiwan until 2026, given the country's overloaded defense industry, the Taiwanese defense ministry said on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd May, 2022) The United States is forced to delay weapons supply to Taiwan until 2026, given the country's overloaded defense industry, the Taiwanese defense ministry said on Monday.
In August 2021, the US State Department approved a $750 million arms sale of artillery systems to Taiwan, with the delivery of 40 M109A6 Paladin medium self-propelled howitzer systems scheduled for 2023.
"The production line is crowded out," the ministry said in a statement, as quoted by the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post.
The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a legislation allowing the Biden administration to engage in lend-lease deals for military equipment with Ukraine and other Eastern European countries.
Meanwhile, Taiwan is seeking alternative ways to receive the howitzers amid the delay, the country's defense ministry said.
"The defense ministry is currently reviewing alternative plans," the statement said.
Last Friday, the Chinese embassy in Washington said that the US should stop selling weapons to Taiwan, as China reserves the right to respond to any foreign meddling.
The Taiwan issue contributes to exacerbating relations between China and the US. Washington continues to sell weapons to the island, maintain official and military contacts with Taipei. Beijing calls on the US to stop such provocations.
Official relations between Beijing and Taipei broke down in 1949 after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek defeated by the Chinese Communist Party in the civil war moved to Taiwan. business and informal contacts between the island and China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the two sides have been in contact through nongovernmental organizations, including the Beijing Association for the Advancement of Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.
