The US Congress would authorize a direct military confrontation with China if Beijing launched an attack on the self-ruled island of Taiwan, said the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.
Insisting during a televised interview on Friday that US lawmakers would consent to put boots on the ground if American people support the measure, the senior congressman from Texas, Michael McCaul, claimed: “If communist China invaded Taiwan, it would certainly be on the table and something that would be discussed by Congress and with the American people.”
“If the American people support this, the Congress will follow,” McCaul reiterated while speaking to right-wing Fox News from Taipei -- where he is leading a bipartisan delegation to the territory claimed by China.
The Hawkish legislator, however, failed to explain how his murky claim of popular support for a military conflict with China would be derived.
McCaul then went on to insist that a “conflict is always a last resort,” describing the US delegation’s visit to Taipei as a means to “provide deterrence to China.”
Beijing, however, regards the persisting political visits by US officials to Taiwan – which China regards as an inalienable part of its sovereign territory – as highly provocative and the key contributor to deteriorating tensions with Washington.
On Saturday, the Chinese military announced the launch of three days of exercises in the Taiwan Strait. The drills -- held at the same time as McCaul’s visit to Taipei and just a day after the Taiwanese president returned from the US -- was designed as a warning to Taiwan and “external forces,” the Chinese military said.
The American lawmaker further reiterated during the interview that discussions about a potential US use of force in the Indo-Pacific region would serve as a “deterrent for peace” since “you don’t have NATO in the Pacific.”
He then obnoxiously claimed that doing otherwise would mean inviting “aggression and war.”
Later on Saturday, McCaul also vowed during a luncheon hosted by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei for the American congressional delegation that US lawmakers will help provide training for Taiwan's armed forces and to speed up delivery of weapons to the island.
Speeding up weapons deliveries to Taiwan
"As the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, I sign off on all foreign military sales, including weapons to Taiwan, and I promise you, Madam President, we will deliver those weapons," the Republican lawmaker emphasized.
"We are doing everything we can in Congress to speed up these sales and get the weapons that you need to defend yourselves," he added.
Taiwan has complained of delays to deliveries of American weapons since last year, as US arms makers turn supplies to Ukraine to support its war effort against Russia.
Beijing, meanwhile, has repeatedly opposed Taiwan’s contacts with the US, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry warning again on Wednesday that the Taiwan issue is “the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations.”
While a military pact between Taipei and Washington ended in 1979 when the US severed formal diplomatic ties in favor of Beijing, a close military relationship between them endures as the US remains Taiwan's main foreign source of arms.
China describes Taiwan as the most sensitive and important issue in its relations with the US, and the topic remains a constant source of friction between Beijing and Washington.
