On April 16, former US national security adviser John Bolton called for US troops to be stationed in Taiwan to deter China from launching an invasion. Contrast this with US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley’s comment earlier this month, that the US can provide Taiwan with Ukraine-style assistance.
“We just need to help the Taiwanese to defend it [Taiwan] a little bit better,” Milley told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services budget hearing.
Bolton’s solution would have a greater deterrence effect and Taiwan’s history tells us the reason.
On May 1, 1951, the US military established the Military Assistance Advisory Group, Taiwan (MAAG) to provide defense assistance to Taiwan in a region threatened by communist China and war on the Korean Peninsula. In addition to Taiwan proper, the advisory group was stationed across Taiwan’s outlying islands, including Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu.
After Washington and Taipei signed the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty in 1954, it paved the way for the establishment of the US Taiwan Defense Command (USTDC), which was tasked with a combat role — defending Taiwan and the Pescadores (Taiwan proper and the Penghu islands) in the event that war broke out with China.
In other words, wherever Taiwanese troops were garrisoned, there were always members of the MAAG on hand in a consultancy-based role. However, were China to launch an invasion, the USTDC’s area of combat would have been limited to defending Taiwan proper and Penghu.
During this period of active defense assistance by the US military, the First Taiwan Strait Crisis and Second Taiwan Strait Crisis occurred. Despite the presence of MAAG advisory groups, Chinese forces initiated an unrelenting series of attacks on Kinmen and Matsu.
However, China restricted its military campaign to these areas — which were not included in the mutual defense treaty — precisely because Beijing did not dare to initiate a head-on conflict with US combat forces stationed on Taiwan proper and the Penghu islands.
Returning to the present, prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US had been providing military training and other assistance to Ukraine’s military following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Secure in the knowledge that it would not have to face US forces in direct combat, Moscow initiated a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, US troops stationed in eastern European NATO member states have created a “trip wire” that the Kremlin does not dare cross.
During a speech in December last year, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said that “if Taiwan has a problem, then Japan also has a problem,” adding that Taiwan-Japan relations are comparable to the US-Japan alliance.
Abe’s remarks demonstrate that were a war to break out in the Taiwan Strait, it would trigger a far more complex situation than the Russia-Ukraine war. Whether considered from the perspective of the US-Japan alliance, or the AUKUS security alliance between Australia, the UK and the US, there would likely be a rapid response to a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan.
During an interview with CNN last year, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) confirmed that a small number of US troops were in Taiwan training Taiwanese forces. In the words of Milley, to send a clear signal to Beijing that Taiwan would be a “very, very difficult objective to take,” Ukraine’s experience shows that the only effective solution is for US combat troops to be regarrisoned on Taiwan.
Ou Wei-chun is chief legal officer of a private company.
Translated by Edward Jones
A return to power for former US president Donald Trump would pose grave risks to Taiwan’s security, autonomy and the broader stability of the Indo-Pacific region. The stakes have never been higher as China aggressively escalates its pressure on Taiwan, deploying economic, military and psychological tactics aimed at subjugating the nation under Beijing’s control. The US has long acted as Taiwan’s foremost security partner, a bulwark against Chinese expansionism in the region. However, a second Trump presidency could upend decades of US commitments, introducing unpredictability that could embolden Beijing and severely compromise Taiwan’s position. While president, Trump’s foreign policy reflected a transactional
There appears to be a growing view among leaders and leading thinkers in Taiwan that their words and actions have no influence over how China approaches cross-Strait relations. According to this logic, China’s actions toward Taiwan are guided by China’s unwavering ambition to assert control over Taiwan. Many also believe Beijing’s approach is influenced by China’s domestic politics. As the thinking goes, former President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) made a good faith effort to demonstrate her moderation on cross-Strait issues throughout her tenure. During her 2016 inaugural address, Tsai sent several constructive signals, including by acknowledging the historical fact of interactions and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has prioritized modernizing the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to rival the US military, with many experts believing he would not act on Taiwan until the PLA is fully prepared to confront US forces. At the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress in 2022, Xi emphasized accelerating this modernization, setting 2027 — the PLA’s centennial — as the new target, replacing the previous 2035 goal. US intelligence agencies said that Xi has directed the PLA to be ready for a potential invasion of Taiwan by 2027, although no decision on launching an attack had been made. Whether
HSBC Holdings successfully fought off a breakup campaign by disgruntled Asian investors in recent years. Now, it has announced a restructuring along almost the same east-west lines. The obvious question is why? It says it is designed to create a simpler, more efficient and dynamic company. However, it looks a lot like the bank is also facing up to the political reality of the growing schism between the US and China. A new structure would not dissolve HSBC’s geopolitical challenges, but it could give the bank better options to respond quickly if things worsen. HSBC spent 2022 battling to convince shareholders of
RSS