The US is set to expand the number of troops helping train Taiwanese forces, two US officials said on Thursday, although the White House declined to comment on the details.
Reuters in 2021 reported that a small number of US special operations forces have been rotating into Taiwan on a temporary basis to train the military.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Pentagon was expected to increase that number in the coming months.
Photo: CNA
One of the officials said the exact number of increased troops was unclear.
“Our support for and defense relationship with Taiwan remains aligned against the current threat posed by the People’s Republic of China and consistent with our ‘one China’ policy. That has not changed,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked about the report in a daily news briefing.
“Our commitment to Taiwan contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region,” she said.
On the decision to send more troops to Taiwan, Jean-Pierre said questions on specific troop numbers should be referred to the US Department of Defense, which had yet to respond to the report as of Thursday night.
Speaking to reporters in Taipei yesterday, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said he “did not know” the source of the information about expanded training.
He said that Taiwan and the US have substantial military interaction, which naturally includes personnel coming to teach how to use equipment the US sells to Taiwan.
However, it does not involve stationing troops in Taiwan, Chiu added.
The Wall Street Journal earlier on Thursday reported that the US was markedly increasing the number of troops deployed to Taiwan to bolster a training program for the military.
“The US plans to deploy between 100 and 200 troops to the island in the coming months, up from roughly 30 there a year ago,” the report said, citing US officials.
The larger force would expand a training program the Pentagon has taken pains not to publicize as the US works to provide Taipei with the capabilities it needs to defend itself without provoking Beijing, the report said.
The planned increase would also be the largest deployment of forces in decades by the US in Taiwan, as the two draw closer to counter China’s growing military power, the report said.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated in an online discussion on Thursday why the US felt the stakes in the Taiwan Strait were so high.
He said the high concern over a crisis across the Taiwan Strait exists because it is not an internal matter, as China frames it.
“It’s a matter of concern to quite literally the entire world,” he told Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic as they reviewed the implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Half of all commercial container traffic goes through that waterway every day, Blinken said, adding that most of the semiconductors that the world needs are produced in Taiwan.
“If there were a crisis in Taiwan as a result of China’s aggression in some fashion, that would have, I think, disastrous consequences for the world economy and for countries around the world, and that’s a message, too, that Beijing is hearing increasingly,” Blinken said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS