US Sends Troops to Taiwan in Provocation against China

Map of China and Taiwan, Wiki
The United States has dispatched some 200 military advisers/ boot camp instructors to bases around Taiwan; this is the largest deployment by the US in the area in nearly half a century. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and reacts strongly to any political support for the island that might undermine Beijing’s position. US Representative Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the President of Taiwan that the US will deliver weapons and military training; this is another example of our leaders provoking unnecessary war.

The Taiwanese military comprises a mainly volunteer force of 188,000 troops, including 10 percent of conscripts at any one time and is enacting conscription reform that will add 70,000 service members, but the island’s defenders would still be dwarfed by China’s 2 million-strong standing army.

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The United States has dispatched some 200 military advisers to bases around Taiwan to assist with ongoing reforms to the island’s armed forces, Taiwan’s semi-official Central News Agency said on Monday.

The instructors were assigned to support training at boot camps and reserve units, CNA said, ahead of a planned extension of Taiwan’s mandatory military service from four to 12 months beginning in 2024. President Tsai Ing-wen announced the policy change late last year as Taipei took meaningful steps to gird itself for Beijing’s military ambitions in the coming decade.

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, although its Communist Party leaders are yet to rule the island in their seven decades in power. Since Washington switched formal diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, China has opposed ongoing U.S.-Taiwan defense ties and reacts strongly to any political support for the island that might undermine Beijing’s position.

Tsai, whose second term in office ends next May, acknowledged the presence of U.S. military advisers in Taiwan for the first time in October 2021, but said their numbers weren’t “as many as people thought.” Chiu Kuo-cheng, her defense minister, said shortly after that U.S.-Taiwan military exchanges didn’t mean American troops were now “stationed in Taiwan.”

Taiwan’s army soldiers account for more than half of the island’s active service members. The service branch on Tuesday declined to comment on the CNA report, but said “exchanges with foreign militaries are conducted in accordance with planning.”

Sun Li-fang, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry spokesperson, told a media briefing the same day that it “welcomes allied military training to enhance the nation’s armed forces,” without elaborating.

In separate reports in February, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters said the U.S. Department of Defense was planning to send between 100 and 200 troops to Taiwan in the coming months, the largest such deployment in nearly half a century.

The Taiwanese military comprises a mainly volunteer force of 188,000 troops, including 10 percent of conscripts at any one time and excluding 2.3 million reservists on paper. The planned conscription reform could add an estimated 70,000 service members starting in 2027, but the island’s defenders would still be dwarfed by China’s 2 million-strong standing army.

Taiwan isn’t a U.S. treaty ally, although most Americans are supportive of some degree of military assistance in event of a Chinese invasion across the Taiwan Strait. For more than 40 years, Taipei has counted Washington as its main supplier of weapons and training under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979.

Under the auspices of the TRA, a battalion of around 500 soldiers was expected to travel to the U.S. for training this year, CNA said in February. Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Taiwanese troops were also receiving instruction from unnamed units of the U.S. National Guard.

Read full article here…

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Warning: SOme vulgar language

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terry shead
terry shead
1 year ago

This is madness, America will get slaughtered if they start with China

Jimbo
Jimbo
1 year ago

One such National Guard Twainese training unit is within ‘bicycling distance’ of a proposed “Gotion” Battery factory, recently gaining Michigan legislature $800M in taxpayer funding by 10-to-9 vote, after hundred of millions paid in recent lobbying. Condition of bylaws for employment state “swearing allegiance to CCP (Communist Chinese Party).” Additionally this Battery(/Spy) plant will be an acute environmental threat to 500 acres of prime Michigan farmland, river, and watershed. Clearly US Federal “Espionage Act” violation has commenced here in view of cited National Guard Base military activity nearby, and the presence of US advisors with the Michigan trained Taiwanese soldiers.… Read more »