I-Hwa Cheng/AFP via Getty Images Taiwan sits along the so-called first island chain, a series of U.S.-aligned territories seen by military planners as key to containing Chinese naval expansion.

Following this month’s first batch, 42 more Abrams tanks would be delivered next year, and the final 28 in 2026, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Taiwan had ordered them in 2019.

Taiwanese are rushing to buy patches being worn by their air force pilots that depict a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh – representing China’s leader Xi Jinping – as a defiant ...