US arms manufacturers have eye on clock

The Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taipei, Southeast China's Taiwan. [Photo/Xinhua]

This is an editorial from China Daily.

Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the so-called US Taiwan Business Council, told Japan's Nikkei newspaper on Wednesday that a group of 25 US defense contractors plans to send delegates to the island in early May to explore opportunities for the joint production of drones and ammunition.

The trip is meant "to promote defense industry cooperation with Taiwan", the newspaper quoted Hammond-Chambers as saying.

This is not the first time the head of the de facto lobbying group for arms sales to the Chinese island has acted as a thief throwing a stone into a courtyard before deciding whether to climb over the wall or not.

He had already scouted the surroundings of the courtyard in October last year. Taking advantage of Washington's growing concern then that the fast consumption of ammunition in the Ukraine conflict was quickly depleting US stocks, he revealed to the same Japanese newspaper that Washington is considering a plan to jointly produce weapons with Taiwan.

Although what technologies would be included in the program, which entails the approval of the State Department and the Pentagon, had not yet been decided, it would likely focus on providing Taiwan with more munitions and long-established missile technology, with Hammond-Chambers saying that "It's a piece of the puzzle, not a game changer".

Asked about the proposal, a US State Department spokesperson said at the time that all options were being looked at to "ensure the rapid transfer of defensive capabilities to Taiwan".

Nikkei reported that Washington is open to the idea of coproduction arrangement, because US contractors are struggling to fill the backlog of orders.

The big arms orders that Washington thrusts on Taipei — the US is the sole arms seller to the island — dwarfs the capacity of the world's most efficient and largest weapons assembly lines in the US, resulting in a late delivery that stretches years, even decades, ahead.

But even the island's secessionist-minded administration is well aware that giving a green light to producing US weapons on the island means instant self-destruction. Washington too knows that the proposal would change the game beyond its control.

Yet Hammond-Chambers' latest show clearly demonstrates that the US military-industrial complex is becoming increasingly ruthless in trying to skin a flea for its hide as it wants to seize every minute of the window before Taiwan's reunification with the motherland to maximize the surplus value they can extort from the island.