US Navy to ‘need additional resources’ to counter China, new secy. says

US President Joe Biden’s nominee for the navy says the United States will “need additional resources” to counter China at sea.

Carlos Del Toro made the comments before a Senate panel during his confirmation hearing.

“As our nation shifts from a land-based strategy over the past 20 years fighting the wars and in West Asia to a more dominant maritime strategy in the Pacific, particularly in our efforts to deter China, I do believe that our Navy and Marine Corps team will need additional resources to be able to fully field the combat effectiveness we will need as a nation to do so,” he said.

Del Toro further told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he would be focused on what he described as the Chinese “threat,” further vowing to continue US support for Chinese Taipei (Taiwan).

“It’s incredibly important to defend Taiwan in every way possible,” said the nominee to lead US Navy. “It takes a holistic view of our national commitment to Taiwan. We should be focused on providing Taiwan with as much self-defensive measures as humanly possible.”

Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory, therefore; it opposes official exchanges between the United State and the island nation, which proclaims itself as the Republic of China or ROC.

According to the One China Principle, there is only one Chinese government based in Beijing officially called the the People’s Republic of China or PRC.

“And if confirmed to the Navy, I am going to be exclusively focused on the China threat and exclusively focused in moving our maritime strategy forward in order to protect Taiwan and all of our national security interests in the Indo-Pacific theater,” Del Toro added.

Tensions have been on the rise between the US and China in various sectors, including maritime activities mostly in the South China Sea, where the two two countries’ militaries come extremely close to each other.