According to Taiwan media reports on the 21st, the United States recently announced the latest "appropriations bill". The U.S. State Department authorizes Taiwan to provide $2 billion in "military financing" that needs to be repaid every year, and dispatches U.S. economic, trade, and security officials to Taiwan to work in the island's "Executive Yuan" and "Legislative Yuan" for short periods of time.
F-16 fighter jet Source: Reuters
The U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2023, which President Biden will sign into law. It contains US$10 billion in "free military aid" and US$2 billion in "military financing direct loans" to Taiwan in the next five years. Before the excitement of the DPP authorities and the pro-green media had passed, they were poured cold water on the subsequent reality. According to a report on the website of Taiwan's "Wang Bao" on December 22, members of Congress from both parties in the United States announced the results of negotiations on the comprehensive appropriation bill for fiscal year 2023 on the 21st. The United States did not include the "free military aid" part in the 2023 annual appropriation, but instead provided it in the form of "military loans," and Taiwan must repay the loan and interest within 12 years.
It was promised that "the quality and quantity of support for Taiwan has reached a record high", but the ticket has been delayed!
Former Taiwan foreign affairs official Jie Wenji mocked the U.S. move as "gangsters come to the market to collect protection fees." "Last year, the Tsai Ing-wen administration's fiscal and tax overruns exceeded 10 billion U.S. dollars. Do they still need to borrow money from the United States?"
"How far will we continue to be led by others!" Jie Wenji questioned that the United States allowed Taiwan to borrow money indiscriminately. 2 billion U.S. dollars, if the content of the procurement is also decided by the United States, why do we need the Tsai Ing-wen authority? "Aren't you being taken over?" He criticized the United States for "trading war and selling weapons. It's too aggressive this time!"
Current U.S. President Biden has sold arms to Taiwan seven times in less than two years since he took office. The United States has gone to great lengths to contain the development of mainland China.
The Taiwan Region Unification Promotion Party expressed serious dissatisfaction with the actions of the United States and went to the "AIT Association" ("American Institute in Taiwan") to protest on the afternoon of December 21, emphasizing that Taiwan affairs are China's internal affairs and that the United States will not want to concoct a war across the Taiwan Strait. It angrily accused the United States of not treating Taiwan as a "weapons arsenal" and even bluntly said that "it does not want Taiwan to become the next Ukraine."
Zhong Qin, the former head of the island’s news department, even spray-painted a big “NO!” on the American flag to express his dissatisfaction with what the United States was doing. She angrily pointed out that this was a "respect" to the United States. "Since the blue and green (China's Kuomintang and Democratic Progressive Party authorities) dare not say NO to the United States, let the Taiwanese people say no!" She also denounced the DPP authorities' abhorrent act of betraying Taiwan by allowing the United States to send officials to work in Taiwan.
Hong Kong media pointed out that the US’s so-called “Taiwan Policy Act” to the current National Defense Authorization Act are extremely ridiculous. Anyone with a discerning eye can tell whether the United States is "giving help in times of need" or "a weasel giving New Year greetings to a chicken." (Comprehensive reference news, observer network report)
