The outgoing chief of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has denied a report about the permanent stationing of American troops on a Taiwan front-line island.
"The article was incorrect. There's no permanent stationing of U.S. forces there. We can talk in a classified setting for further evaluation, but that is just inherently inaccurate," Adm. John Aquilino told a House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday morning.
Aquilino appeared to be referring to a report that originated with Taiwan's United Daily News newspaper, which said in February that instructors with the U.S Army Special Forces, also known as Green Berets, had been deployed to Taiwan in line with the National Defense Authorization Act of 2023.
Specifically, the U.S. troops were alleged to be training Taiwanese troops on Penghu and Kinmen—outlying island counties in the 90-mile-wide Taiwan Strait that separates Taiwan from China.
If true, the development would mark the first time in over four decades that U.S. forces were officially operating in Taiwan.
Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Department of Defense outside office hours.
Aquilino's statement was the first official denial of the alleged change, as the Department of Defense had previously declined to comment on specific reports.
The admiral seems to have contradicted a remark by Taiwanese Minister of Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng days earlier.
When asked by the press whether there were American boots on the ground on a permanent basis in Kinmen, Chiu appeared to confirm the news. "We can learn from each other to see what strengths we have," he responded, adding that the arrangement was "fixed."
In 2021, President Tsai Ing-wen revealed U.S. military instructors had been conducting occasional training with Taiwanese armed service members, confirming what had long been suspected.
Additionally, UDN previously reported there is also a U.S. military presence in the northeast city of Taoyuan on Taiwan's main island. These troops were said to be providing instruction on drone equipment Taiwan hopes to procure for its elite Airborne Special Service Company.
The U.S. military has not been officially in Taiwan for the long haul since it closed its last base in 1979 following the normalization of U.S.-China relations.
Though the U.S. switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, the U.S. remains Taiwan's largest arms supplier.
The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act requires Washington to provide Taipei with sufficient defensive weaponry and support to resist "force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan."
China views democratic Taiwan as a rogue province and has vowed to eventually unify with it, through force if necessary, though the Chinese Communist Party government in Beijing has never ruled there.
"All indications point to the PLA (People's Liberation Army) meeting President Xi Jinping's directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, Aquilino said in a written statement ahead of a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday.
CIA Director William Burns previously cited intelligence saying Xi had ordered his military to be prepared to take Taiwan by that year, though this does not mean China will attempt to do so.
The Indo-Pacific Command is a unified combatant command of the U.S. Department of Defense, responsible for military operations in the Indo-Pacific region.
Update 4/26/24, 12:00 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional context.
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Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
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