HONG KONG – In her first term, President Tsai Ing-wen secured more than $10 billion in high-profile U.S. weapons to defend Taiwan against China. Over the next four years, it may be more important to acquire less glamorous but nimbler weapons to prevent Beijing from considering an invasion.
Tsai, whose Democratic Progressive Party views Taiwan as an independent nation, spent her first four years in office successfully securing high-tech arms commitments from U.S. President Donald Trump, including more advanced F-16s and battle tanks. Now she will need to show whether she can use that base to build a more credible deterrent against any attack by an increasingly powerful China.
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