Hsiao Bi-khim (Hsiao, Vice President of Taiwan)

Some of them are dual use.

Some of them could expedite this process.

Some of them can dive into the manufacturing process to make significant reforms to modularize some of our acquisitions.

And so I think we take this seriously, and we are also looking at ways to not only partner with American tech, but also build and fortify indigenous capabilities here.

You know, we...

Again, learning from theaters elsewhere, having an indigenous capability to innovate and build what is needed in our society is also very important, but we also need to bridge that gap between traditional defense apparatus, as well as all of the capabilities and innovations of our own private sector.

Yes.

Over a decade ago, China claimed that they were only providing bases for resupplying fishing boats and for completely humanitarian purposes.

But we see that now they are not only building artificial islands, but they are also militarizing them.

And that is generating tremendous anxiety, I think, in our own neighborhood among other Southeast Asian countries.

And I think that

certainly demonstrates my point that their expansionist intentions are not limited to Taiwan.

They have broader global ambitions in changing

the rules-based order or the rules as we know it.

Some of those rules involve the freedom of navigation.

Freedom of navigation, again, is foundational to global trade, especially maritime trade.

This is quite an alarming evolution.

If China gets its way in terms of setting the rules for international behavior,

advancing their system of governance to other parts of this world.

Obviously, we have a very different idea of how the world should be run.