Taiwan Rejects China Pressure Ahead of House Speaker Meeting

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen delivers a speech as she attends a banquet hosted by Belizean Prime Minister John Briceno, in Belize, in this handout picture released on April 4, 2023. (Taiwan Presidential Office/Handout via Reuters)
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen delivers a speech as she attends a banquet hosted by Belizean Prime Minister John Briceno, in Belize, in this handout picture released on April 4, 2023. (Taiwan Presidential Office/Handout via Reuters)
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Taiwan Rejects China Pressure Ahead of House Speaker Meeting

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen delivers a speech as she attends a banquet hosted by Belizean Prime Minister John Briceno, in Belize, in this handout picture released on April 4, 2023. (Taiwan Presidential Office/Handout via Reuters)
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen delivers a speech as she attends a banquet hosted by Belizean Prime Minister John Briceno, in Belize, in this handout picture released on April 4, 2023. (Taiwan Presidential Office/Handout via Reuters)

Taiwan pushed back against threats of retaliation by China, ahead of an expected meeting between President Tsai-Ing-wen and the US House speaker Wednesday that will underscore her government's claim to sovereignty.

Tsai has been visiting the island's remaining diplomatic allies in Latin America, Belize and Guatemala. The most politically sensitive part of her trip will be a meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles while she transits on her way back home.

China views Taiwan as its own territory and treats any dealings between US and Taiwanese officials as a challenge to its sovereignty. Tsai's tour is a bid to demonstrate that her government has international support.

Belize and Guatemala are two of just 13 countries that formally recognize Taiwan, a number that has dipped as China has put pressure on and funneled money into isolating the island. Tsai's Latin American trip comes just a week after Honduras announced it was cutting ties with Taiwan in favor of China, potentially prompted by a $300 million hydroelectric dam project in central Honduras built by a Chinese company.

Last week, and again on Monday, China threatened with countermeasures if Tsai met with McCarthy. The Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles issued a statement Monday saying it opposed any “any form of contact” between Taiwan authorities and the US.

“The reality and current situation that both sides of the (Taiwan) Strait belong to one China is very clear,” the statement said.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at a daily news briefing Tuesday that China “will closely follow the developments and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it has never been part of China, and that China's recent criticism has become increasingly “absurd.”

“Taiwan, the Republic of China, is a sovereign country, and has the right to make its own determination in developing relations with other countries in the world,” it said in a statement. “It does not accept interference or suppression by any country for any reason, and will not limit itself because of intimidation or interference.”

The United States’ longstanding “one-China” policy acknowledges that the Chinese claim Taiwan as their territory. However, the US does not endorse that claim and remains Taiwan’s most important provider of military hardware and other defense assistance.

China has repeatedly asserted its claim to Taiwan, though Taiwan maintains its own democratic system of government since the sides split after a civil war in 1949.

Keeping up the military pressure, China's People’s Liberation Army sent 20 warplanes toward Taiwan Monday to Tuesday as well as three warships in the latest round of exercises, which have increased significantly in recent years.

China regularly sends warplanes around the island and has at times seemingly used the exercises as a demonstration of its ire.

Last December, China sent 71 planes and seven ships toward Taiwan in a 24-hour display of force after it expressed anger at Taiwan-related provisions in a US annual defense spending bill.

And last year, China responded to a visit by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan with the largest live-fire drills in decades that included firing a missile over the island, which had landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone.

The PLA’s increased military activity near Taiwan has raised concerns among regional governments, and also drawn greater international attention and rhetorical support for Taiwan’s defense. US legislators have also started visiting Taiwan at a greater frequency, as anti-China sentiment and concerns over China's strategic position grows in Congress.



Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
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Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)

Israel's effective use of air-launched ballistic missiles in its airstrikes against Iran is expected to pique interest elsewhere in acquiring the weapons, which most major powers have avoided in favor of cruise missiles and glide bombs.
The Israeli Army said its Oct. 26 raid knocked out Iranian missile factories and air defenses in three waves of strikes.
Researchers said that based on satellite imagery, targets included buildings once used in Iran's nuclear program, according to Reuters.
Tehran defends such targets with “a huge variety” of anti-aircraft systems, said Justin Bronk, an airpower and technology expert at London's Royal United Services Institute.
Cruise missiles are easier targets for dense, integrated air defenses than ballistic missiles are.
But ballistic missiles are often fired from known launch points, and most cannot change course in flight.
Experts say high-speed, highly accurate air-launched ballistic missiles such as the Israel Aerospace Industries Rampage get around problems facing ground-based ballistic missiles and air-launched cruise missiles - weapons that use small wings to fly great distances and maintain altitude.
“The main advantage of an ALBM over an ALCM is speed to penetrate defenses,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.
“The downside - accuracy - looks to have been largely solved,” he said.
Ground-launched ballistic missiles - which Iran used to attack Israel twice this year, and which both Ukraine and Russia have used since Russia's invasion in 2022 - are common in the arsenals of many countries. So, too, are cruise missiles.
Because ALBMs are carried by aircraft, their launch points are flexible, helping strike planners.
“The advantage is that being air-launched, they can come from any direction, complicating the task of defending against them,” said Uzi Rubin, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, one of the architects of Israel's missile defenses.
The weapons are not invulnerable to air defenses. In Ukraine, Lockheed Martin Patriot PAC-3 missiles have repeatedly intercepted Russia's Khinzhals.
Many countries, including the United States and Britain, experimented with ALBMs during the Cold War. Only Israel, Russia and China are known to field the weapons now.
The US tested a hypersonic ALBM, the Lockheed Martin AGM-183, but it received no funding for the 2025 fiscal year.
Because it has a large arsenal of cruise missiles and other types of long-range strike weapons, Washington has otherwise shown little interest in ALBMs.
A US Air Force official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ALBMs are not used in Air Force operations.
Raytheon's SM-6, an air-defense missile that has been repurposed for air-to-air and surface-to-surface missions, also has been tested as an air-launched anti-ship weapon, said a senior US defense technical analyst, who declined to be identified because the matter is sensitive.
In tests the missile was able to strike a small target on land representing the center of mass of a destroyer, the analyst said. Publicly, the SM-6 is not meant for air-to-ground strikes.
Because ALBMs are essentially a combination of guidance, warheads and rocket motors, many countries that have precision weapons already have the capability to pursue them, a defense industry executive said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“This is a clever way of taking a common set of technologies and components and turning it into a very interesting new weapon that gives them far more capability, and therefore options, at a reasonable price,” the executive said.