The foreign ministry says it’s confident that the United States will fulfill its obligation to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons. The comments came Tuesday after the US Senate voted to allow the sale of four Perry-class frigates to Taiwan last week.
The Senate bill, which passed unanimously, follows a similar bill which passed the US House of Representatives in April. But in order for the procurement deal to move forward, the House and Senate must agree on a single text for the bill and pass it on to the executive branch.
Here in Taipei, foreign ministry official Kelly Hsieh said Tuesday that he’s confident that US will follow through with its pledge to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons.
Hsieh said, “We believe that the US Congress and the government will continue to abide by the Taiwan Relations Act’s security commitments, and deal with our procurement request in that spirit.”
The proposed sale of the Perry-class frigates falls under the framework of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which governs US-Taiwan relations in the absence of official diplomatic ties. The act requires the US government to provide Taiwan’s with the weapons it needs to defend itself.