By Ankit Panda
U.S. support for Taiwan will extend into the South China Sea.
Last Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives expressed its approval of the changes the Senate had made in June to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (NDAA 2016), the latest iteration of an annual law that authorizes defense spending for the coming fiscal year. The House and the Senate had been logjammed over the differences between the two version of the bill, but, pending final approval by the House and Senate, NDAA 2016 [PDF] will find its way to the White House for the president’s signature. The reconciled version of NDAA 2016, as with previous iterations of the U.S. defense spending legislation, affirms U.S. support for Taiwan. This year’s version, unlike last year’s, includes Taiwan among a list of countries that will receive active “assistance and training” from the United States in the South China Sea.
Section 1261 of NDAA 2016 outlines a new “South China Sea Initiative,” which appears first in a sector on “Matters Relating to the Asia-Pacific Region.” It notes that the secretary of defense is authorized to provide assistance and training to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, and, finally, Taiwan, “for the purpose of increasing maritime security and maritime domain awareness of foreign countries along the South China Sea.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat