Last week, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry announced it had signed a deal with the US under which the US will send military personnel to the island for a naval training program.
The US has a history of sending personnel to train Taiwanese forces, but the training programs are typically not publicized for fear of provoking China. A source told Taipei Times that the announcement marked the first time Taipei had officially announced a “specialized training program” with the US.
The Taipei Times report said the US was changing its “low-key and confidential training approach to a semi-public approach, testing political and public reactions.”
Taiwan’s last president, Tsai ing-Wen, was the first to confirm the presence of US troops on the island since Washington and Taipei severed relations in 1979, an acknowledgment she made in 2021.
Last year, Taiwan confirmed that US Green Berets had been deployed to Kinmen County, a group of small islands that are just a few miles off the coast of mainland China.
The naval training deal, signed between Taiwan’s Navy and the US’s de facto embassy in Taiwan, is worth $1.5 million, and the training program is expected to last until the end of 2026. Details of the training are unclear, but Taipei Times said it will likely involve amphibious combat training.
The Biden administration significantly increased US support for Taiwan, including by providing US-funded military aid for the first time, steps that China has warned strongly against. The US military is also openly planning for a future war with China over Taiwan despite the risk of nuclear war.
The Trump administration is expected to continue the hard line on China as Trump nominated China hawks to fill key cabinet roles, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In a signal to China, Rubio’s first meeting after being sworn in was with diplomats from the Quad nations, which the US views as a potential foundation for a NATO-style alliance in Asia.
Had "warned" makes it sound as if giving aid to Taiwan would be something bad. It isn't. Taiwan is no threat to China, everyone knows that. Maybe the author could acknowledge that in just one sentence, at least.
"Openly planning" Adding "openly" is meant to indicate that it's something criminal – and look, they're still doing it openly!
They are not "planning for a future war over Taiwan." They are planning to defend Taiwan if it is attacked. Or does Dave DeCamp seriously want the readers to believe that the U.S. and Taiwan would attack China? He doesn't believe that. But he words it to imply that.
"Despite the risk of nuclear war" That must mean defending Taiwan is BAD! By Dave's logic, you should never oppose China in anything, because they have nukes, so that could mean "the risk of nuclear war."
Does Dave seriously believe that China would try to attack Taiwan, the U.S. would help defend the people from invasion, and China's leaders would then launch nukes against the U.S., dooming themselves in the process?
Really?
No, Dave does not believe that.
Furthermore, China will not attack Taiwan. For one thing, there are only about four months per year when the sea is calm enough for that. Also, they'd lose all their trade and their more than $1 trillion investment in the U.S., which would be meaningless.
Also, they know they have practically no navy, and the U.S. navy dominates the seas.
China and Taiwan are deeply involved economically. Four airlines go daily between Taipei and Beijing – two Taiwanese, two Chinese. Taiwan has more investments in China than the U.S. does, building factories and employing Chinese workers. China respects Taiwan's law in business dealings, which puts the lie to their propaganda claim that "ackshually, Taiwan is part of China!" IN PRACTICE they always act with the full knowledge that it isn't. Chinese businesses, government-linked or not, bring up cases in Taiwanese courts.
China's leaders have said that they won't go to war, they will simply wait and expect that eventually Taiwan will return to China voluntarily. They have had that policy for generations now. Xi Jinping has repeated it. It's enough for them that Taiwan is closely linked to China in business and that it is full of ethnic Chinese. China, historically, has often been divided into different countries, while still being called China.
And Taiwanese defenses would sink many of the Chinese ships in an attack. They would lay mines all around, and the islands around Taiwan are a hedgehog of fortified defenses. Thanks to the U.S. Taiwan has modern missiles that could hit Chinese ships even as they come out from port. I know, Dave, terrible. Only China should have that power to hit Taiwan, not the other way around.
Any attempt to take Taiwan would require at least half a million men successfully landing in Taiwan on the first one or two days before the U.S. navy intervenes. China has only a few modern landing ships. All of which are vulnerable.
Any Chinese leader who let ships sink when attacking Taiwan, ruining China's economy in the process, would quickly be out of office.
China won't attack Taiwan. But it's still despicable how they surround the island at times, constantly bullying. Likewise, they attack the Philippine coast guard, with Chinese naval ships spraying the deck of coast guard vessels with high-pressure water cannons that would kill anyone on deck. They drive toward coast guard boats as if to ram them, and have even hit them.
They do that to take a group of small Philippine islands where they want to build a naval base. Far from China, to bully the Philippines and other nations.
They claim that the entire South China Sea belongs to them, far away from the Chinese coast. (The "China Sea" was named by Dutch sailors, it has never been Chinese.) They claim the waters outside Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore. Completely without right.
So despite what the author here thinks, it is right to stand up to China. They will keep pressuring to see what they can take in Asia, just like the U.S. does in the Middle East.
Ask Filipinos if they want to lose their islands to the Chinese. Ask Taiwanese people if they want to be invaded by China's dictatorship. Which would be voted out immediately if there were elections in China. Not for being "communist" – they are not, that's Cold War rhetoric from U.S. politicians who are actually wishing for war – but for being corrupt.
Had "warned" makes it sound as if giving aid to Taiwan would be something bad. It isn't. Taiwan is no threat to China, everyone knows that. Maybe the author could acknowledge that in just one sentence, at least.
And I would think China isn't worried about the "threat" from Tawain. I mean, seriously, why would they? I'm sure Russia wasn't worried about the threat from Ukraine either.
Must watch documentary:
The Coming War On China
https://johnpilger.com/the-coming-war-on-china/
Here in the US, generations of voters have be voting out the corrupt bastards, only to have them replaced by corrupt bastards from the other party.
Such a deal!