The United States admits that we have troops in Taiwan...

 

The USS Gerald R Ford. US Navy photo.

The United States has admitted that US Marines and special forces are deployed in Taiwan, drastically increasing the tension in the region. Fox News. The troops are there to train Taiwan's military. The news comes as China has been consistently testing Taiwan's air defenses with massive air intrusions. 150 planes tested Taiwan's air defenses over four days. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province instead of a sovereign nation and may consider the deployment of US troops as an act of war. Officially the United States follows a "one China" policy. 

Why just two dozen members? Why secretly? The US should send 240 servicemen publicly, in US military uniform, and make public where they are stationed. See whether the PLA will launch a targeted air strike to eliminate those US invaders! https://t.co/0Herr8TBtu

— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) October 7, 2021

My Comment:

Looks like there was some truth to the tweet that Senator John Cornyn tweeted out. The numbers were way off but according to the Wall Street Journal there was some truth to there troops in Taiwan. He still screwed up and screwed up badly though. 

This is not going to play well with the Chinese government. They consider Taiwan to be their clay and they will see these troops being present as an invasion. It's a major escalation from the United States and may even serve as a casus belli for China to declare war. 

Which begs the question why on Earth would the US government admit this? They just got rid of plausible deniability. Much like the fact that Israel has nukes but will never admit to it, we could have kept those troops in Taiwan and simply lied about it. Why tell anyone about this? It makes zero sense to increase tensions, put these troops at risk and give China a pretty good excuse for war.  

I don't really have a problem with having those troops in Taiwan. They are a buffer against China's imperial ambitions and if they get invaded it will be a major war that the United States might not be able to win. Having their troops trained better might help things in that eventuality. But admitting it? Makes no sense to me.  

This could very well be yet another example of incompetence from the Joe Biden administration. They may have made a massive mistake here and could have even started a war. I don't really think that Biden means to be this aggressive with China so it's very possible that someone screwed up here. 

But if he did mean to do it? It's a major escalation and a signal to the Chinese that we aren't playing around, even if that's not the message he meant to sent. It's a level of antagonism that even President Trump didn't do (even though he was probably the person who sent these troops there in the first place). 

I don't think either the United States or China are really ready for war. China doesn't seem to be using their military budget to create an invasion fleet, they have a major lack of small and medium landing ships. They are instead focusing on building a blue water navy to contradict the US Navy. Plus, I doubt they want to have a war before the 2022 Beijing Olympics. And nobody in the United States outside of the most die hard Neocons are looking for war with China. 

But on the other hand, I think this is a major insult to China and they may feel they have to respond to save face. It's very possible that they could launch limited strikes on Taiwan in revenge for this. If that happens the situation could very easily spiral out of control into a major war, even a nuclear one. A minor skirmish is more likely, but even that would devastate the world economy given the importance of China and its neighbors. And unless you have been living under a rock for the past two years, you know that the economy can not handle another shock right now.