Tsai confirms presence of US troops, crosses red line
Print Edition
IN a recent interview with CNN published yesterday, Taiwan’s regional leader Tsai Ing-wen confirmed for the first time that United States troops are present on the island.
Tsai’s move has stepped on the red line, and she will surely face consequences from the Chinese mainland, including more military activities, said experts from both sides of the Taiwan Straits.
She is the first Taiwan regional leader to acknowledge the presence of US troops on the island, telling CNN they are there for “training purposes.”
She did not disclose the exact number of US military personnel on the island but said it was “not as many as people thought,” and “we have a wide range of cooperation with the US aimed at increasing our defense capability.”
Since 2020, many times words have come out from different sources that the US has a military presence on the island, but this is the first time that it’s been confirmed by Tsai.
Tsai is playing with fire, as admitting US military presence in Taiwan is no different to stepping on the red line of the one-China principle and violating the Anti-Secession Law, Chiu Yi, a former “lawmaker” in Taiwan and a Taiwan-based pro-reunification scholar, told China’s Global Times yesterday.
Tsai is risking destruction on herself because she wants to highlight Taiwan’s ties with the US to save her falling support, get US President Joe Biden’s help and attempt to suppress Kuomintang chairman Chu Li-luan, Chiu said.
Tang Yonghong, deputy director of the Taiwan Research Center at Xiamen University, told the Global Times yesterday that Tsai wants to comfort people in Taiwan with the protection of the US, encourage secessionist forces and deliver a signal to the international community, that the US is supporting Taiwan “as a country” at a time when the US is playing the Taiwan card in the strategic competition with the Chinese mainland.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday called on United Nations member states to support the island of Taiwan’s participation in the UN system, which experts said is burying the possibility of easing China-US tensions.
Chiu warned that there is no way the Chinese mainland will just stand by and watch, and that the cross-Straits tension is bound to escalate following Tsai’s latest statement. Tsai is only saving her own power, and face, without changing the situation in the Taiwan Straits for the good, Chiu said.
And, the US military “assistance” has very limited significance in closing the gap between the military power of the island and the mainland, he added.
Tsai’s remarks have proven that the Taiwan secessionist authorities insist on seeking foreign support to seek secessionism, as they believe the illegal military presence of the US on the island can protect them. The mainland needs to strengthen its military presence as well, including all necessary activities conducted by military aircraft and vessels to crackdown on the secessionist attempt, said Li Fei, a professor at Xiamen University.
In addition to condemning the revelation, the Chinese mainland should take real actions to make the US and Taiwan secessionists pay the price, Tang said.
Chinese People’s Liberation Army warplanes flying close to the island has become a routine practice since 2020.
Just on Wednesday, three PLA warplanes, namely two J-11 fighter jets and a Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft, entered Taiwan's self-proclaimed southwest air defense identification zone, the island’s defense authorities said.
A day earlier, transport and attack helicopters of the PLA were spotted for the first time conducting training in the same area, which experts said displayed the PLA’s grasp of the region.
Helicopters can only become active on the battlefield when the PLA has gained aerial superiority, and the combination of transport and attack helicopters means they could be on an amphibious assault mission aimed at landing on the island, military analysts said.
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