US Lawmakers Prepare Taiwan Lend-Lease Bill as Regional Tensions Seethe

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set off on a multi-day regional tour of Asia early Saturday, neither confirming nor denying whether she would visit Taiwan during the trip. Beijing considers the island its sovereign territory, has repeatedly demanded that US officials refrain from formal contacts with the island, and has urged Pelosi not to come.

A group of congressional Republicans are putting together a lend-lease military assistance bill for Taiwan.

The draft legislation, cosponsored by Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, Florida Senator Rick Scott and California Representative Michelle Steel, is dubbed the ‘Taiwan Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act’, and authorizes the expedited lend or lease of defense articles to Taipei in the event of Chinese “aggression.”

Like its World War II-era counterpart, the bill would allow the United States to send weapons to the island without entering directly into a potential conflagration with the People’s Republic of China. The bill proposes a 12-year window for repayment for the lent or leased weapons.

“Taiwan is our greatest partner in the Indo-Pacific region, and their continued sovereignty is essential to challenging the New Axis of Evil,” Blackburn said in a press statement – referring to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. The phrase ‘Axis of Evil’ was coined by President George W. Bush in 2002 to refer to Iraq, Iran and North Korea, and was part of the justification for the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“The Chinese Communist Party continues to intimidate and pressure our ally and the United States should always be on the side of freedom and democracy. I’m proud to lead this bipartisan bill in Congress to show the CPP that we will not back down from supporting our allies,” congresswoman Steel said.

Senator Scott suggested that it was in America’s national security “best interest” to “arm Taiwan and ensure it has the capacity to defend itself,” and called Taipei “one of our most important partners in the Indo-Pacific.”

Hsiao Bi-Khim, Taiwan’s representative to the United States, praised the lawmakers for their work, and emphasized that Taipei “appreciates” the “effort to seek creative avenues to strengthen Taiwan’s defense capabilities” to “uphold the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

A similar weapons lend-lease bill for Ukraine was signed into law by President Biden in May, with Washington receiving guarantees from Kiev to replace or reimburse the assistance provided at a later date. US lawmakers have already pumped more than $54 billion into the Ukrainian crisis, and have promised to continue providing assistance indefinitely.

Republicans aren’t the only ones in Congress seeking to ramp up pressure against China. While they spend hours of airtime and gallons of ink debating the GOP on domestic issues, Democrats are just as hawkish when it comes to matters like Taiwan and Ukraine. On Tuesday, so-called progressive Democrat Ro Khanna of California urged Pelosi to ‘call Beijing’s bluff’ and visit Taiwan in spite of the Chinese government’s warnings not to do so.

The escalation of China-US tensions popped up seemingly out of nowhere on July 19, when the Financial Times reported that the House speaker might visit Taiwan during a regional tour of Asia. Chinese President Xi Jinping warned President Biden Thursday that Washington risks getting “burned” if it “plays with fire” on the Taiwan question, and stressed that Beijing “strongly” opposes “separatism and ‘Taiwan independence’ as well as interference from external forces.” Last week, Chinese English-language media warned that PLA aircraft may intercept Pelosi’s plane and fly into Taiwanese airspace if the provocative trip is allowed to proceed.

On Friday, the PLA kicked off a two-day naval drill in the South China Sea. Earlier in the week, the Pentagon deployed a carrier strike group to the region.

The United States has sold Taiwan tens of billions of dollars’ worth of defense hardware over the decades, notwithstanding a commitment not to do so under the One-China Principles and the three China-US joint communiques requiring Washington not to support ‘Taiwan independence’.

Earlier this year, US media reported that American defense contractors had accumulated a backlog worth $14.2 billion on military equipment which Taiwan bought back in 2019 but has yet to receive. The Biden administration approved an additional $750 million arms package for Taiwan in 2021, with those weapons also reportedly undelivered. In May, the New York Times reported that Washington was putting pressure on Taipei to order even more American military hardware to “repel” a possible Chinese “seaborne invasion.” The same month, Taiwan’s defense ministry announced that US-made howitzers it had ordered had been “crowded out” by deliveries sent to Ukraine instead.

Beijing considers Taiwan an inalienable part of China destined for eventual peaceful reunification with the mainland under the ‘One Country – Two Systems’ model applied to Hong Kong and Macau. Beijing and Taipei carefully built up informal diplomatic and economic contacts during the 1980s and 1990s, with trade between the two reaching a whopping $188.9 billion in 2021, notwithstanding geopolitical tensions.