The State Department has given the go-ahead on the sale of $180 million in weapons to Taiwan, including a truck-launched anti-tank mine system known as the Volcano.
“The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States of Volcano (vehicle-launched) anti-tank munition-laying systems and related equipment for an estimated cost of $180 million,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement.
The DSCA is the Pentagon agency overseeing the sale of arms and the provision of training and other services to foreign governments.
According to the DoD, the Taipei office (Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington, DC), requested an unspecified number of Volcano systems, 10-ton cargo trucks, M87A1 anti-tank munitions, M88 and M89 canister and training munitions, logistics support including spare parts, manuals, training and engineering assistance.
“The proposed sale will improve the recipient’s capability to meet current and future threats by providing a credible force capable of deterring adversaries and participating in regional operations,” the DSCA said.
The $180 million contract is expected to be implemented by US defense giant Northrop Grumman and Oshkosh Corporation – makers of heavy vehicles for the US military.
The M136 Volcano is an automated vehicle-launched mine deployment system, attachable to both ground-based vehicles like trucks, and helicopters, including the UH-60 Blackhawk. It is designed to rapidly deploy mines, with the weapons literally chucked out of vehicles carrying them and dispersing across a wide area at high speeds. A demonstration video can be seen here.
The approval of the sale of the Volcano to Taiwan comes amid Taipei’s continued militarization, and efforts by its government to turn the island into a fortress “porcupine” bristling with weapons and defenses to make it “too painful” for China to invade. Beijing has repeatedly emphasized that it seeks to reunify with the island peacefully, and to allow Taiwan to preserve its unique system under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ model applied to Hong Kong and Macau.
It’s unclear when the newly promised US weapons systems could arrive in Taiwan. The Biden administration has already pledged to sell $2.2 billion in military equipment to Taipei (including a $1.1 billion arms sale deal penned in September). But it was revealed last month that the backlog of US weapons promised to the island but still unshipped has reached a whopping $18.7 billion, including orders signed as far back as December 2015.
China has repeatedly demanded that Washington halt its arms sales to Taiwan, in accordance with the terms of the Sino-US communique of August 1982, which committed the US to “gradually reduce” its weapons deliveries to the island to zilch to align with the One China principle.