BEIJING, Aug. 13 The first deliveries of US HIMARS missile systems to Taiwan could be made before the end of the year, the Taipei Times newspaper writes.
«Twenty-nine M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) kits that the military purchased from the United States in 2020 and 2022 are to be delivered in different batches between the end of this year and 2026,» the report said.
As the publication notes, the island has purchased two batches of HIMARS from the United States in total. The first batch of 11 launchers is scheduled to be delivered between the end of this year and 2025, with the remaining 18 launchers to be delivered by the end of 2026.
The second batch will also include 84 MGM-140 ATACMS missiles.
Earlier, the head of the island's administration, Lai Qingde, said that Taiwan would continue to independently strengthen its defense capabilities and purchase weapons from foreign countries.
The official representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Lin Jian, said that the purchase of weapons by the Taiwanese administration would not stop the historical trend of the inevitable reunification of China.
Beijing considers Taiwan an integral part of the PRC, and compliance with the «one China» principle is a prerequisite for other states wishing to establish or maintain diplomatic relations with the PRC. The «one China» principle and non-recognition of Taiwan's independence are also observed by the United States, despite the fact that it maintains close contacts with Taipei in various areas and supplies the island with weapons.
The situation around Taiwan has become significantly more tense after Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited the island in early August 2022. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi's visit, seeing in this step US support for Taiwanese separatism, and conducted large-scale military exercises.
Formal relations between the central government of the People's Republic of China and its island province were broken off in 1949 after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, who had been defeated in a civil war with the Communist Party of China, moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties have been in contact through non-governmental organizations — the Beijing-based Association for the Development of Relations Across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei-based Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.