The US is increasing its small contingent of troops in Taiwan to train local forces, an American defense official said, in the latest move of support for the island democracy and willingness to raise the ire of China.
(Bloomberg) — The US is increasing its small contingent of troops in Taiwan to train local forces, an American defense official said, in the latest move of support for the island democracy and willingness to raise the ire of China.
The US military presence in Taiwan would grow to between 100 and 200 troops, up from about 30 a year ago, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier Thursday.
“We don’t have a comment on specific operations, engagements or training, but I would highlight that our support for, and defense relationship with, Taiwan remains aligned against the current threat posed by the People’s Republic of China,” Lieutenant Colonel Marty Meiners, a Pentagon spokesman, said in an email. The State Department later offered the same response.
The latest development is only likely to add to the strain in US-China relations, which have become frayed in the months since President Joe Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Indonesia and tried to set ties on a more stable path.
Tensions have risen since the US identified, and then shot down, what it says was a Chinese spy balloon that crossed the US mainland. China denounced the action against what it says was a wayward weather balloon.
The balloon journey led to Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponing a planned trip to China for long-awaited meetings. And when the top US diplomat met his counterpart Wang Yi in Germany, the two traded barbs over everything from the balloon and Taiwan to North Korea and potential Chinese support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
There’s also a lack of top-level military-to-military communications between the two sides. In early February, shortly after shooting down the balloon, the Chinese declined a request from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to speak to his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe.
At the same time, the Biden administration is under pressure from US lawmakers of both parties to bolster US arms and aid to counter a potential future effort by China to seize Taiwan, which China claims.
In a statement on Wednesday, Republican Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, who chairs the House’s new select committee on China, said he came back from a visit to Taiwan “even more convinced that the time to arm Taiwan to the teeth was yesterday.”
US military support for Taiwan — including billions in arms sales for advanced weapons — is a constant source of tension between Washington and Beijing. This month, China hit Lockheed Martin Corp. and a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies Corp. with sanctions and fines for arms sales to Taiwan — moves analysts consider largely symbolic given those units sell little or nothing to China.
The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately reply to emailed questions. Taiwan’s Presidential Office spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka declined to comment on the issue Friday.
In 2021, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen confirmed in a interview with CNN the presence of US troops on the island for training purposes.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington, said in a statement that “for decades, Taiwan and the United States have coordinated closely on matters pertaining to defense and maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait. We have no further comments or details to share.”
–With assistance from Tony Capaccio and Cindy Wang.
(Updates with Taiwan Presidential Office comment in the 11th paragraph.)
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