On Saturday, the Chinese Embassy in Washington asked the Biden administration to halt the supply of weapons to Taiwan, warning that the People’s Republic reserves the right to respond to such provocative behaviour. Beijing considers Taiwan an integral part of China destined for eventual peaceful reunification with the mainland.

Taiwanese authorities are searching for a stopgap alternative to US-sourced M109A6 self-propelled howitzers amid delays to the latter’s delivery, the island’s Ministry of National Defence announced Monday.

“In response to media reports on the case of the M109A6 self-propelled guns arms sale, the Ministry of National Defence said today that the M109A6 arms purchase [by Taiwan] was crowded out in the production line. The US side informs us that this system will not be delivered to the Republic of China until 2026 at the earliest”, the ministry said in a statementpublished on its website.

In connection with this, the MoD said it is “carefully considering” alternatives for long-range systems, such as the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) – a truck-mounted MLRS. The Defence Ministry stressed that a budget proposal will be submitted to the legislature after a discussion on alternatives is carried out by the military.

The Biden administration approved a $750 million package of arms sales to Taiwan in August 2021, among them 40 M109A6 self-propelled howitzers, also known as Paladins, with the first eight expected to be sent in 2023 and 16 more in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

The US also approved the sale of 11 M142s to Taiwan in late 2020, with those systems also yet to be delivered.

Taiwanese media blamed the delays on the US military-industrial complex’s focus on sending arms to Ukraine, with some outlets going so far as to suggest that the 2021 arms deal had effectively been “cancelled”.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220502/taiwan-forced-to-go-howitzer-free-as-us-military-industrial-complex-pumps-out-guns-for-kiev-reports-1095203610.html

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