The United States will quadruple the number of US forces stationed on Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, in an effort to provoke a war with Beijing along the lines of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The United States is actively turning Taiwan into a military base just dozens of miles off the coast of mainland China, with the aim of goading China into invading the island, and painting the ensuing war as the result of “Chinese aggression.”
The announcement gives context to the Biden administration’s unprecedented decision to attack a Chinese research balloon that had been blown over the United States earlier this month, the first time that any aircraft had been shot down over US territory or its coastal waters.
The attack, and the media frenzy that preceded it, was used in an attempt to whip up public hysteria and fear of China, justifying a massive US military buildup on the other side of the world.
In January, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, sent a letter to his subordinates stating, “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” and urging them to get their “personal affairs” in order in preparation for a conflict with China.
In both May and September of last year, US President Joe Biden categorically asserted the US would be willing to go to war with China if it invaded Taiwan.
The announcement of the troop surge follows the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act at the end of last year. It effectively rendered the US’s decades-old “One China policy,” under which Washington de facto recognized the Beijing regime as the sole government of all China, including Taiwan, a dead letter by sending direct military aide to Taipei.
