Since 1979, and the dissolution of the US Taiwan Defense Command on the altar of the normalization of relations between Washington and Beijing, the United States had officially withdrawn all of its forces present on the island of Taiwan since the rupture between the authorities of the island and the People's Republic of China in 1949. And if the United States had always respected, in a more or less zealous way, the commitment made to Taipei to guarantee the security of the island, no American soldier had been deployed there since, in order to respect the commitments made with the Chinese authorities. Officially at least, since according to a Wall Street Journal article, two dozen members of the American Special Forces, accompanied by a small detachment of US Marines, would be deployed for a mission of assistance and training to the Taiwanese armed forces, and this for more than a year. Without providing official confirmation, Pentagon spokesman John Supple, when questioned on the matter, said that relations between the United States and Taiwan were "in line" with Washington's desire to contain the Chinese threat.
According to the article, the American forces on the spot would be present only for relatively short periods of a few months, by rotation of the forces, and would be there only for questions of training. However, Beijing is unlikely to see it that way. Already, a few months ago, the simple fact that a transport plane affiliated with the US Air Force had landed in Taipei had provoked the fury of Chinese officials, and triggered the organization of numerous exercises and the now traditional demonstration of power of the Air Force of the People's Liberation Army in the south of the island. This broke a record last Monday with no less than 52 aircraft in flight simultaneously in the air control area of the island, causing the anti-aircraft defense and the Taiwanese fighter to be put on alert. We can therefore expect, in the coming hours, or days, a strong and demonstrative response from Beijing, with probably an increase in acts of provocation. Indeed, for the Chinese authorities, the deployment of American forces, even symbolic as is the case here, is assimilated to a deployment of foreign forces on its own soil, and can therefore represent a potential Casus Belli.
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