The United States has deployed a contingent of troops and a special unit to Taiwan for at least a year to train the local army to defend itself against a possible invasion of China.
An official of the American defense apparatus confirmed, remaining anonymous, what was revealed exclusively by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday: the United States has deployed a contingent of troops and a special unit in Taiwan for at least a year to train the local army. to defend itself from a possible invasion of China.
The training involved both the Taiwanese ground forces and the maritime ones, with exercises entrusted to the Marines and conducted on small boats. RELATIONS BETWEEN TAIWAN, CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES
Taiwan (formally the Republic of China) is an island in the southeast of China commonly understood (the People’s Republic of China led by the Communist Party) and is a state in its own right, with its own government and political system. But it is not recognized as such by Beijing, which considers it a part of its territory and claims it.
The United States does not have official relations with Taiwan (in fact it has formal relations with Beijing), but it is its main supporter and arms suppliers. WHY THE PRESENCE OF AMERICAN TROOPS IS IMPORTANT
That the United States was militarily present, in small numbers, in Taiwan is not new. It is a novelty, however, that this presence has been made public and confirmed. It confirms that, moreover, it came at a significant moment: one day after the announcement of an agreement in principle between Washington and Beijing for a virtual summit between President Joe Biden and his counterpart Xi Jinping by the end of the year.
The deployment of foreign troops in Taiwan is one of the conditions set by the People’s Liberation Army (the Chinese armed forces) that could justify the start of a military operation.
In recent years, relations between Taiwan and China have become particularly tense. The concrete manifestation of this tension are the frequent (and numerous) incursions of Chinese aircraft into the Taiwanese air identification zone: last Monday alone there were fifty-six of them. More generally, Chinese allusions to an invasion of Taiwan have multiplied: these are statements that must be skimmed by nationalist rhetoric, but which obviously alerted the United States, several Asian countries and, of course, Taiwan. WHAT TAIWAN DOES TO DEFEND ITSELF
The United States has developed a defense policy for Taiwan from China called the porcupine strategy. The island is incomparable in size to mainland China, and cannot dominate it in power: it must then – say the Americans – equip itself with a protective “armor” of war systems that act as a deterrent (a bit like porcupine quills), in in order to induce Beijing to give up the attack to spare itself the injuries and associated costs.
According to Taiwan, China will be able to launch a large-scale invasion of the island by 2025; the timing offered by the US generals is roughly the same. The Taiwanese government will spend $ 8.6 billion in five to build weapons and military vehicles, such as missiles and warships.WHY TAIWAN IS IMPORTANT
Taiwan’s importance to China is twofold. On the one hand, there is a question of national pride and national integrity. On the other hand, Taiwan is seen by Beijing as an ideological threat because it represents a sort of “alternative China” to that governed by the Communist Party, with a completely different state-social model: it is a democratic republic, not a one-party system .
For the United States, on the other hand, Taiwan is useful for monitoring China and its maritime containment: Washington wants to prevent Beijing from having hegemony over the South China Sea and from expanding into the Pacific Ocean; it is no coincidence that he often sends warships to the area to reaffirm the freedom of navigation. The domination over the seas and the straits is one of the foundations of the American geopolitical primacy, which China aspires to obtain.
For Japan, which has recently approached Taiwan, it is important that China does not get its hands on the island because otherwise it could also gain control of the Luzon Strait, immediately to the south, where the sea routes crossed by the LNG carriers pass through. gas in Japan, a country poor in energy resources. THE MICROCHIP
Outside of geopolitics, Taiwan has great “practical” importance for all three of the countries mentioned above. Together with South Korea, Taiwan is one of the two global hearts of the microchip industry, fundamental for a whole range of industries, from electronics to automobiles.
The Taiwanese TSMC is by far the most important company in the sector, capable of producing advanced and very small microchips: it is therefore indispensable for satisfying the economic-technological ambitions of both the United States and China. Beijing, in particular, is behind on semiconductors and depends on foreign supplies.
