Taiwan receives backlogged Stingers from 2019 weapons sale

Taiwan has received a shipment of Stinger missiles and other military equipment originally approved in 2019, as the U.S. works to fulfill a backlog of nearly $19 billion in weapons sales to the island democracy. 

A State Department spokesperson told The Hill on Wednesday that reports of Stinger missiles arriving in Taipei last week were related to a $223.56 million weapons sale initially approved in July 2019. 

That weapons sale included more than 250 Stinger missiles — an anti-aircraft weapon favored for its light weight and capability to be fired from a soldier’s shoulder, which has proven to be a favored weapon for Ukrainian forces battling Russian aggression. 

The English-language Taipei Times reported on May 27 that a batch of Stinger missiles arrived in Taipei from the U.S., citing a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News. 

While Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said earlier this month that President Biden is expected to announce the first tranche of a $1 billion weapons transfer to Taiwan directly from Department of Defense stockpiles — and approved by Congress for 2023 — the State Department spokesperson said the Stingers that arrived in Taiwan are related to the earlier approved arms sale.

“In 2019, we notified a proposed [Foreign Military Sale] case to TECRO [Taipei Economic And Cultural Representative Office In The United States] for this system,” the spokesperson said.

“As such, this case predates authorities included in Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act (TERA) as incorporated into the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act.”

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have pushed the Biden administration to find solutions to the $19 billion backlog in defense deliveries, which U.S. officials say are related to ongoing COVID-19 supply chain issues and production lines that have gone dormant. 

The U.S. and Taiwan are alarmed that Chinese aggression towards the autonomous, island-democracy — that Beijing claims as part of its territory — is a prelude to a wider conflict and are working to outfit the island with defense capabilities they say will deter a Chinese invasion.

China regularly violates Taiwanese air and naval space and has conducted live-fire military exercises around the island in response to high-profile meetings between U.S. and Taiwanese officials, such as when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited the island in August 2022 and when Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in California in April.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning responded to the reports of the delivery of Stingers on May 26, criticizing the U.S. as interfering in China’s internal affairs, calling the weapons delivery “extremely wrong and dangerous.”