By Michael Martina
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ukraine's stiff resistance against the invasion by Russian forces could be a model for Taiwan to defend itself should China choose to violate the island's "sovereignty" by attacking, a senior U.S. defense official told a Senate hearing on Thursday.
The United States, like most countries, does not have formal ties with Taiwan but is its main arms supplier, and has long urged it to buy cost effective and mobile defense systems – so-called "asymmetric" weapons – to counter China's more powerful military.
"I think the situation we're seeing in Ukraine right now is a very worthwhile case study for them about why Taiwan needs to do all it can to build asymmetric capabilities, to get its population ready, so that it can be as prickly as possible should China choose to violate its sovereignty," Mara Karlin, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities, said.
Under the United States' "one China" policy, Washington only acknowledges China's stance that the island belongs to it, but takes no position on Taiwan's sovereignty.
China bristles at any reference to democratically self-governed Taiwan as independent, and Beijing's ambassador to Washington warned in January that U.S. encouragement of independence could trigger a military conflict between the two superpowers.