Washington is Playing with Fire as it Risks Provoking Beijing
In addition to escalating tensions with Moscow, the Biden administration continues to expand militarily against China, moves that hold profound risk.
A four-star United States Air Force general, on January 27th, sent a memo to the officers under his command, ominously predicting an all-out war between China and the United States over Taiwan in 2025. “I hope I am wrong,” said Gen. Mike Minihan in a memo obtained by NBC News. “My gut tells me will fight in 2025.”
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. is currently planning to deploy an estimated 100 to 200 troops to Taiwan in the coming months, “quadrupling” the U.S. presence on the island. The move underscores major escalations in relations with China while also signifying closer ties to Taipei.
Antiwar.com’s Dave DeCamp reports:
The US plans to deploy between 100 and 200 troops to Taiwan in the coming months, which could quadruple the US presence on the island, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The move would mark the most significant deployment of US military forces to Taiwan in decades and risks provoking China. The US has sent military trainers to Taiwan since severing diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979, but the deployments were much smaller. The Journal report said the US presence in Taiwan consisted of about 30 troops last year.
The purpose of the deployment would be to train Taiwan’s military on US weapons and to prepare for a future conflict with China. US special operations forces and Marines have been sent to Taiwan for this purpose before, and the US National Guard recently began training Taiwanese troops as well, both in the United States and in Taiwan.
U.S. troop presence in Taiwan has always been a bit of an “open secret,” but was confirmed and acknowledged by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in October 2021. Now, the Biden administration is discarding this secret, sending in even more military personnel, which no doubt draws the ire and anger of Beijing, which has made abundantly clear that closer military cooperation between Washington and Taipei could very well lead to war breaking out.
As of right now, the U.S. still officially maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on whether or not America would militarily defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, although President Biden has claimed numerous times that the U.S. military would defend Taiwan from such an invasion launched by Beijing, only for his assertions to be walked back by White House officials.
In addition to sending troops to Taiwan, the U.S. has relentlessly expanded militarily in the Asia-Pacific against China as part of its “pivot to Asia,” a policy coined by President Barack Obama in 2011 to signify an increasing military buildup in the region to counter Beijing. In the words of the Libertarian Institute’s Connor Freeman, the ‘pivot’ “entails surrounding China with hundreds of bases and shifting two thirds of all U.S. naval and air forces to the Asia-Pacific, the greatest military buildup since World War II.”
Just recently, the U.S. and the Philippines reached an agreement to add four new American military installations to the country with the purpose of countering China in the event of war. According to the Washington Post, the new bases “could give US forces a strategic position from which to mount operations in the event of a conflict in Taiwan or the South China Sea.” Additionally, the Biden administration opened up a new military base in Guam, a base that is envisioned to host 5,000 Marines.
On February 21st, Secretary of Defense Llyod Austin spoke with his counterpart in the Philippines, Carlito Galvez, reminding China of the commitments America holds to the Philippines, stating “that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, aircraft, and public vessels, including those of its Coast Guard, anywhere in the South China Sea, would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.”
These are just a few recent examples of Washington’s irrational posturing towards China. China, unsurprisingly, views these policies as provocative measures.
Provoking Beijing
American foreign policy is and has been so destructive in large part due to the fact that out-of-touch and power-hungry bureaucrats refuse to take heed of the other side’s perspective. Expanding the empire and its military presence to ‘counter’ the CCP, surrounding China with hundreds of military bases, influencing neighboring nations to be more militaristic against Beijing, and handing out war guarantees to numerous governments in the region is an apt description of Washington’s foreign policy regarding China.
The Biden administration is increasing the likelihood of a war with China by continuing to interfere in the backwaters of China, a war in which there are no guarantees of an American victory. The U.S. is, in effect, surrounding China and backing it into a corner, an approach that cannot end well for both sides. Clearly, the lessons of Ukraine have not dawned on the D.C. elite. Concurrently, the U.S. is escalating toward a two-front war against both China and Russia, a policy driven by insanity and empire.
Imagine, for a second, a scenario in which China or Russia starts becoming politically involved with the governments of Canada, Mexico, and even Greenland, influencing politicians and bureaucrats within those countries to harbor more contempt for America. Imagine, then, that the Chinese or Russians decide to start arming Mexico or Canada against the U.S. Moreover, imagine a scenario in which Moscow or the CCP start to place hundreds of military bases in these three countries, effectively surrounding mainland America. America and its people, rightly, would not stand idly by and watch such a dilemma take place. These scenarios candidly exemplify what the U.S. is currently doing to China.
“The American people need to understand something that no one has bothered to tell them,” retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor said to Tucker Carlson concerning Taiwan. “All of the major invasions of China were launched from Taiwan. Beijing will not allow Taiwan to become a garrison state for American armed forces.” “If they [Beijing] think we are going to ally ourselves with Taiwan, if they think we are going to intervene to defend that island in the event of a dispute, then we will be at war with China.”
“We are not prepared for that,” warned Macgregor.
Washington, indeed, is playing with fire with its expansive policy regarding China. A war with China would wreak utter devastation on both sides and again, there is no guarantee for an American victory. Such a war should be rigorously and attentively avoided for the sake of American men and women, who will bear the ultimate price if such a war arises.
Biden, on the other hand, is extending U.S. troop numbers in Taiwan, opening up new bases, and continuing to expand the empire in the Asia-Pacific, ignoring the very real possibility that his extensive policies will provoke a war from Beijing.
Well, if Afghanistan is any indication of how we would fight a war, we are in big trouble! Our great military Generals did a horrific job of that fiasco. Also fighting a war on two fronts, that brings a mind to Germany in WWII!! I hope we will have a new leader in 2025 who can take a step back from all this lunacy!!
Maybe all the grifting money is in Ukraine. China needs to buy a few more US politicians and quiet this down, or is it all a distraction for all of our politicians they already own to give them some cover? I am not buying into all of this, it is just my skeptical nature.