Senate advances $4.5B in aid to Taiwan as China threat intensifies

The vote could ramp up tensions between the U.S. and China, which has repeatedly urged America stay away from internal Chinese matters.

Pete Kasperowicz is a politics editor at Fox News Digital. He can be reached at Peter.Kasperowicz@Fox.com and his Twitter handle is @PeteKDCNews.

National security officials within the administration have labeled China as America’s "pacing threat" and have begun the work of designing America’s military capabilities around the possibility of a confrontation with China. Approving new funding and support to Taiwan could escalate tensions with China even further, as China continues to claim Taiwan as part of the mainland and has stepped up pressure on the U.S. to ignore what China calls an internal matter.