Reports show President Joe Biden’s administration authorized Taiwan’s first military transfer through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program reserved for independent nations.
The State Department plans to directly help Taiwan with as much as eighty million in FMF funding, according to a notice given to Congress.
The document said the equipment would increase Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities via joint and integrated defense capacity and improve awareness of the maritime domain and security capability.
The United States would deliver cyber defenses, armored vehicles, modern communications gear, air and coastal defense systems, drones, and more.
It said that armored and infantry combat vehicles might also be part of the package, along with protective gear, ammunition, an assortment of small, medium, and heavy weapons systems, and so on.
Only hours before Foreign Secretary James Cleverly arrived in Beijing did the British House of Commons proclaim Taiwan as an independent nation.
U.S. authorities claim that the only other non-nation state to receive military aid from the United Nations under FMF was the African Union, an association of sovereign nations headquartered in Ethiopia.
Taiwan received $345 million in military assistance from the United States in July, as disclosed by the White House.
On Monday, sources in the Southeast Asian area reported that Taiwanese soldiers had participated in unusual joint drills with the United States military in the United States this summer.
This ‘open secret’ training program in the United States has been kept under wraps by American and Taiwanese authorities.
It took place in Michigan from August 5 -19, with around 7,000 participants, as reported by Taiwanese media. According to reports, the Michigan National Guard served as the leading US military contingent rather than soldiers under direct Pentagon command.
Su Tzu-yun, a fellow at Taiwan’s Institute of National Defense and Security Research, claims that international media have been reporting about joint military training involving Taiwan and the US at Camp Grayling in Michigan as early as 2021.
In July, when Su asked US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner if the US National Guard assisted in training Taiwanese forces, Ratner stated that conversations concerning the matter should be held secret.
