$8 Bln in US military aid to Taiwan, Indo-Pacific
TikTok on the bubble as US House of Representatives advances $95 Bln in security spending bills in weekend votes.
The US House of Representatives passed a series of security bills over the weekend after Republican Speaker Mike Johnson broke with right-wingers in his own party to work with Democrats and the Biden administration to advance $95 billion in military aid.
The legislation includes $61 billion for weapons and military assistance for Ukraine in its war with Russia. The package of bills provides $26 billion to support Israel and US military operations in the Middle East. It is now headed to the US Senate for likely approval. It
The legislation, requested by President Joe Biden, would provide $8 billion "to counter communist China and ensure a strong deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific. Of that, $3.3 billion is to build submarine ports and repair yards and $2 billion is for military financing for Taiwan and other US allies. The Indo-Pacific bill passed with bipartisan majority vote of 385 to 34.
A fourth bill would give TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance nine months to a year to divest the popular video sharing network used by 170 million Americans that US officials say is used by China to gather data and promote propaganda. TikTok would be banned from US app stores and servers if ByteDance fails to divest within the time allotted.
TikTok has denied that it shares users’ data with the Chinese government and invested $1.5 billion in a project to secure traffic and data on Oracle cloud servers in the US. The company mounted a vigorous lobbying campaign against the legislation that included meetings by Chinese embassy officials with congressional staff.
The so-called ‘21st Century Peace through Strength Act’ would also authorize the president to transfer frozen Russian sovereign assets to Ukraine and would expand available sanctions against Iran’s oil production. The bill passed the House in a bipartisan of 360-58 vote.
House Republicans combined the spending measures with the must-pass aid for Ukraine in a package designed to force a quick Senate vote. The aid to Ukraine had been requested by President Biden in October 2023 and was approved in a 70-29 bipartisan vote in the Senate in February.
Trump opposed
Former President Donald Trump, who was impeached by House Democrats during his presidency for delaying aid to Ukraine in 2019, initially opposed Biden’s new spending request. That led to a lengthy political delay in the House as Speaker Johnson faced opposition among some Republicans to bringing the bills to the House floor for votes.
“Why isn’t Europe giving more money to help Ukraine? Why is it that the United States is over $100 Billion Dollars into the Ukraine War more than Europe, and we have an Ocean between us as separation! Why can’t Europe equalize or match the money put in by the United States of America in order to help a Country in desperate need? As everyone agrees, Ukrainian Survival and Strength should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us! GET MOVING EUROPE! In addition, I am the only one who speaks for “ME” and, while it is a total mess caused by Crooked Joe Biden and the Incompetent Democrats, if I were President, this War would have never started!”– Trump on Truth Social, April 18.
Johnson was swayed by US intelligence on Russian advances as Ukrainian forces ran out of ammo and worked with Democrats to secure the necessary votes against resistance from Trump’s MAGA allies.
A bid by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to force a no-confidence vote against Johnson appears to face resistance among House Republicans wary of another leadership debacle following the embarrassing ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October.
Speaking on Fox News the day after the House passed the $95 billion foreign aid package, Greene, a Georgia Republican, said she would not back off plans to call for a vote to removed Johnson amid growing criticism from the right-wing of the party.
“Mike Johnson’s speakership is over. He needs to do the right thing and resign,” Greene said on Sunday, “If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated.”
It appears, however, that Greene does not have the leverage she would need to bounce Johnson from the speakership. Several Democrats have indicated they would support Johnson after he moved to win bipartisan support for a government funding bill and the security legislation, both top priorities for the Biden administration.
“He did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job to the end of this term,” Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said on ABC Sunday, predicting that Johnson would have support from a “few progressive Democrats.”
Blinken to China
With US credibility on the line, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China for a three-day visit in which he is expected to convey the Biden administration’s “deep concerns” over Chinese firms helping Russia’s war effort.
US intelligence shows China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for its war against Ukraine, two senior Biden administration official told The Associated Press last week.
Blinken will meet with senior officials in Shanghai and Beijing where he will focus on implementing plans agreed in the Xi-Biden summit in California in November. Blinken will be working “to advance cooperation on issues such as counternarcotics, bolster mil-mil communication, and establish talks on artificial intelligence risks and safety,” a senior State Department official told reporters on April 19.
“The Secretary will raise clearly and candidly our concerns on issues ranging from human rights, unfair economic and trade practices, to the global economic consequences of PRC industrial over-capacity. The Secretary will also reiterate our deep concerns regarding the PRC’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base.” – Senior State Dept. official, April 19.
Other topics for US-China diplomacy include the crisis in the Middle East, Chinese provocations in the South China Sea, North Korea’s nuclear weapons and tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
The US has previously warned China not to provide lethal aid to Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.
— William Roberts