After a visit to China last month, the commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific, Admiral Timothy Keating, suggested that Beijing’s growing military might was aimed specifically at Taiwan. China has threatened to invade Taiwan if it should declare independence. Ahead of Taiwanese presidential elections and a controversial referendum, political tension across the 90-mile Taiwan Straits that divide the two territories remains high.
The military balance is also precarious. China holds Taiwan’s key military bases–and by extension, much of the island’s population–at risk by stationing more than 1,000 surface-to-surface missiles within range. The U.S. is not formally committed to aiding Taiwan against any assault from the mainland, but it has sold Taiwan billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. arms to defend itself. In November, China blocked a U.S. naval carrier task force from docking in Hong Kong for the Thanksgiving holiday, in protest over the go-ahead for a proposed $940 million upgrade of Taiwan’s Raytheon Patriot air and missile defense system.
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