People in Asia and beyond welcome Lunar New Year

People in Asia and around the world are celebrating the Lunar New Year on Friday with festivals, parades and temple visits to ask for blessings.

In this Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018, file photo, a worker attaches lanterns for celebrations of the Lunar New Year celebrations at the Leng Nuei Yee Chinese temple in Bangkok, Thailand. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

This year marks the year of the dog, one of the 12 animals in the Chinese astrological chart. People in Beijing celebrated with family feasts and visits to bustling temple fairs amid the mid-winter chill.

In this Saturday, Feb. 10, 2018, file photo, a man holds a child as they pose for a photo near a pathway decorated for the Lunar New Year at a public park in Beijing. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Ditan Park in the city center was the most vibrant, with empty tree branches festooned with red lanterns and traditional goods and foods being snapped up by the churning crowds.

In this Monday, Feb. 12, 2018, file photo, a traditional dragon dance is performed ahead of the Lunar New Year in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Other New Year traditions include the eating of dumplings in northern China and gift giving to children in the form of cash-stuffed red envelopes called "hongbao." However, a ban on fireworks in 400 cities, including the capital, severely curtailed such traditional ear-splitting displays this year.

People pray on the first day of the Lunar New Year at the Lama Temple in Beijing, Friday, Feb. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Ethnic Chinese and others around the world also marked the holiday with celebrations. In the Philippines, which boasts a large ethnic Chinese minority, fire breathers performed at a street fair in Manila and children used crates and buckets to put on improvised lion dances.

In Japan, lion dances were performed in Chinatown in the port city of Yokohama, while in Malaysia, a diver dressed as the god of good fortune fed fish at an aquarium in Kuala Lumpur as visitors looked on.

In this Monday, Feb. 12, 2018, file photo, a traditional lion dance team performs ahead of the Lunar New Year in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

In South Korea, the festivals were more solemn, with refugees from the 1950-53 Korean War and their descendants paying respects to ancestors at the Demilitarized Zone dividing the country from communist North Korea.

In this Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, file photo, a vendor selling Lunar New Year decorations waits for customers at a wholesale market in Beijing. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Taiwanese marked the start of the new year with a mad rush to be the first to plant a stick of incense in a temple censor, with the victor receiving a prize and blessings for a prosperous 2018.

In this Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, file photo, a man carries his child under traditional Chinese lanterns on the first day of Chinese Lunar New Year at a temple in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (AP Photo/Sadiq Asyraf)

In this Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, file photo, Indonesian ethnic Chinese release birds which is believed to bring good luck during Lunar New Year celebrations at a temple in the China Town in Jakarta, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Indonesian ethnic Chinese pray during the celebration of Lunar New Year at a temple in the China Town in Jakarta, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Security officials ring the bell at midnight to mark the arrival of the Lunar New Year at the Bell Tower in Beijing, Friday, Feb. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A $8 billion defense package approved by the U.S. House of Representatives over the weekend will “strengthen the deterrence against authoritarianism in the West Pacific ally chain,” Taiwan’s President-elect Lai Ching-te said Tuesday, in a reference to key rival China.

The funding will also “help ensure peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and also boost confidence in the region” Lai, currently Taiwan’s vice president, told visiting Michigan Representatives Lisa McClain, a Republican, and Democrat Dan Kildee at a meeting at the Presidential Office Building in the capital Taipei.

In the face of “authoritarian expansionism,” Taiwan is “determined to safeguard democracy and also safeguard our homeland," Lai said.

Also known as William Lai, U.S.-educated former medical researcher is despised by Beijing for his opposition to political unification with the mainland. In recent elections, the pro-unification Nationalists won a narrow majority in the legislature, but their influence on foreign policy and other national issues remains limited.

The Senate will vote Tuesday on $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

The package covers a wide range of parts and services aimed at maintaining and and upgrading Taiwan's military hardware. Separately, Taiwan has signed billions in contracts with the U.S. for latest-generation F-16V fighter jets, M1 Abrams main battle tanks and the HIMARS rocket system, which the U.S. has also supplied to Ukraine.

Taiwan has also been expanding its own defense industry, building submarines and trainer jets. Next month it plans to commission its third and fourth domestically designed and built stealth corvettes to counter the Chinese navy. as part of a strategy of asymmetrical warfare in which a smaller force counters its larger opponent by using cutting edge or nonconventional tactics and weaponry.

Lai, of the pro-independence ruling Democratic Progressive Party, won the January election handily and takes over next month from President Tsai Ing-wen, whom Beijing has sought to isolate for the past eight years.

China is determined to annex the island, which it considers its own territory, by force if necessary and has been advertising that threat with daily incursions into waters and air space around Taiwan by navy ships and warplanes. It has also sought to pick away Taiwan's few remaining formal diplomatic partners.

While Washington and Taipei have no formal diplomatic ties in deference to Beijing, McClain emphasized the need for the entire world to observe the strength of the relationship.

“Peace is our goal. But to do that, we have to have relationships and we value your relationship. Not only militarily, but economically,” she said.

Kildee said the timing of the visit was especially significant given the recent passage of the funding bill to “provide very important support to insure security in this region.”

"It’s important for the people of Taiwan, it’s important for the people in the United States, it’s important for the entire world,” Kildee said.

In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, from left Mark Alford, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, U.S. Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee, Lisa McClain, secretary-general of the Republican Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives meets with Taiwan President-elect and Vice President Lai Ching-te in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. McClain and Kildee jointly led a cross-party group of lawmakers to visit Taiwan from April 23 to 25 . Members also include Mark Alford, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP)

In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, Mark Alford, center left, a member of the House Armed Services Committee shakes hands with Taiwan President-elect and Vice President Lai Ching-te in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. Lisa McClain, secretary-general of the Republican Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee jointly led a cross-party group of lawmakers to visit Taiwan from April 23 to 25 . Members also include Mark Alford, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP)

In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, U.S. Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee, left, meets with Taiwan President-elect and Vice President Lai Ching-te in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. Kildee and Lisa McClain, secretary-general of the Republican Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives jointly led a cross-party group of lawmakers to visit Taiwan from April 23 to 25 . Members also include Mark Alford, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP)

In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, Lisa McClain, left, secretary-general of the Republican Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives meets with Taiwan President-elect and Vice President Lai Ching-te in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. McClain and Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee jointly led a cross-party group of lawmakers to visit Taiwan from April 23 to 25 . Members also include Mark Alford, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP)

In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, Lisa McClain, left, secretary-general of the Republican Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives meets with Taiwan President-elect and Vice President Lai Ching-te in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. McClain and Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee jointly led a cross-party group of lawmakers to visit Taiwan from April 23 to 25 . Members also include Mark Alford, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP)