The U.S. has deployed a small special operations force and a temporary Marine Corps in Taiwan to help strengthen Taiwan’s defense capabilities, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited an unnamed U.S. official on Oct. 7 local time.
The U.S. official revealed that about 24 U.S. special forces and support troops are training squads of Taiwan’s ground forces, while U.S. Marines are working with Taiwan’s Marines on small-boat training, and said the U.S. troops have been operating in Taiwan for at least a year.
There were media reports from Asia in 2020 that the U.S. might deploy Marines in Taiwan, but this was never confirmed by U.S. officials, and the deployment of U.S. Special Forces was never reported.
Bonnie Glaser, director of the Center for Asia Programs at the German Marshall Fund (GMF), said “activities like this for training purposes have been going on for years. In the past, these activities were done behind closed doors. If they were deliberately made public, it’s news, and it is bound to trigger a backlash from China.”
Chinese official media Global Times commented on Oct. 8 that by releasing the news through an anonymous official, the U.S. side has taken a step from sneaking around to semi-publicly undermining a key condition of U.S.-China diplomatic relations.
According to the Global Times, the Chinese side must definitely react to the new U.S. provocation so that both the U.S. and Taiwan are fully aware of the seriousness of this collusion. Otherwise, U.S. military personnel may next appear openly in uniform in Taiwan, and the size of their personnel may change from a few dozen to several hundred or even more, forming a de facto U.S. military presence in Taiwan. China must make it clear to them that this is playing with fire by provoking war, and the consequences it implies are beyond the reach of both the U.S. and Taiwan.
The article concludes that once the PLA launches a general attack on the regime entrenched across the strait, even before it has fought and only issued an ultimatum, the world will see what kind of a weakling the Taiwan secessionist regime is that normally shows off its ability to be a U.S. outpost to contain mainland China.