The US has approved the sale of an anti-tank mine-laying system to Taiwan amid the rising military threat from China.
The state department on Wednesday said the Volcano system and all related equipment would cost an estimated $180 million.
It is capable of scattering anti-tank and anti-personnel mines from either a ground vehicle or helicopter.
The announcement indicated Taiwan would be buying the vehicle-borne version, the kind of general-use weapon many experts believe Taiwan needs more of to dissuade or repel a potential Chinese invasion.
To advertise that threat, China’s military sent 71 planes and seven ships towards Taiwan in a 24-hour display of force directed at the self-ruled island it claims is its own territory, Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Monday.
China’s military harassment of Taiwan has intensified in recent years, along with rhetoric from top leaders that the island has no choice but to accept eventual Chinese rule.
That has seen the ruling Communist Party’s increasingly powerful military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, send planes or ships towards the island on a near-daily basis.
Between 6am Sunday and 6am Monday, 47 of the Chinese planes crossed the median line of the 100-mile Taiwan Strait, an unofficial boundary once tacitly accepted by both sides, according to the defence ministry.
It came after China expressed anger at Taiwan-related provisions in a US annual defence spending bill in what has come to be a standard Chinese practice.
China also conducted large-scale live-fire military exercises in August in response to US house speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Beijing views visits from foreign governments to the island as de facto recognition of Taiwan as independent and a challenge to China’s claim of sovereignty.
The PLA would continue to launch such missions until Taiwan’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party ceases “constantly provoking confrontation and enmity between the two sides”, Chinese defence ministry spokesman Tan Kefei said at a monthly briefing on Thursday.
“The PLA always … resolutely defends national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Mr Tan said.
In its announcement, the state department said the Volcano sale “serves US national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernise its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability”.
