Defending Taiwan is one of the top priorities of the Pentagon and the US is “very unlikely” to reduce its military presence in the nation, a US defense expert said yesterday.
The remark came after the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank on Wednesday released a report calling on the US to withdraw all 500 US military training personnel stationed in Taiwan to avoid appearing “provocative” to China and contravening “past commitments not to base US forces on the island.”
However, Mark Cancian, a defense expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has prioritized defending Taiwan from a potential Chinese invasion.
Photo: Cheng I-hwa, Bloomberg
Hegseth at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in May emphasized the US military presence in the west Pacific region and the importance of defending Taiwan, Cancian wrote in an e-mail.
The White House would be interested in other suggestions in the report concerning Europe and the Middle East, but not the part about the west Pacific region, he wrote.
Withdrawing military training personnel is unlikely to ease tensions, said Michael Mazza, senior director at the Virginia-based Institute for Indo-Pacific Security and senior non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Global Taiwan Institute.
Tensions in the Taiwan Strait do not come from Washington’s support for Taiwan, but the fact that Beijing refuses to respect Taiwan’s democratic choices and insists on the fictional narrative that “Taiwan has always been a part of China,” Mazza wrote in an e-mail on Thursday.
US military training personnel are assisting Taiwan’s military to prepare for defense and to learn how to collaborate with partners during wartime, which is an important task, Mazza said.
The aim is to show Beijing that the US is determined, he said, adding that a withdrawal of training personnel would negatively affect stability in the Taiwan Strait.
The US government has not confirmed the number of military training personnel stationed in Taiwan.
Retired US Navy rear admiral Mark Montgomery last month said that the US’ joint training mission in Taiwan should be expanded to 1,000 from 500 personnel, and advocated for Taiwan’s defense budget to reach 5 percent of GDP by 2028.
He made the remarks at a hearing of the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the US and the Chinese Communist Party.
Additional reporting by Sam Garcia
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Taiwan's first indigenous defense submarine, the SS-711 Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), departed for its 13th sea trial at 7am today, marking its seventh submerged test, with delivery to the navy scheduled for July. The outing also marked its first sea deployment since President William Lai (賴清德) boarded the submarine for an inspection on March 19, drawing a crowd of military enthusiasts who gathered to show support. The submarine this morning departed port accompanied by CSBC Corp’s Endeavor Manta (奮進魔鬼魚號) uncrewed surface vessel and a navy M109 assault boat. Amid public interest in key milestones such as torpedo-launching operations and overnight submerged trials,
RSS