Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) believes the frequency with which China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter jets and warships circle the island of Taiwan is likely meant to desensitize Taiwan to Chinese military activity so they'll be too slow to respond if and when China ultimately tries to seize control of the island.
In an interview with NTD News’ “Capitol Report,” Brig. Gen. Bacon warned of a growing Chinese interest in controlling Taiwan, adding that the United States has a “moral obligation” to help preserve the island’s independence from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
While Taiwan is self-governing democratic country with its own laws, the CCP insists the island is a part of China and Chinese officials have alluded to plans to take control of the island by force.
“If you have forces all around Taiwan, then if you ever decide to invade, we have less warning because they have forces there all the time,” he explained. “So they try to lower the warning time of what an invasion will look like. If they don’t have forces there and then they put forces there, we'd be alarmed. But, if you always have forces there, it’s hard for us to know at what point are they serious about attacking Taiwan?”
Despite the risk he sees of China being able to attack Taiwan with minimal warning, Brig. Gen. Bacon said support for Taiwan is of both moral and strategic importance to the United States.
“I think we have a moral obligation. You have 23 million people that have embraced our way of life. They want freedom, they like free markets, they have about 85 percent of the [world’s] high-end computer chips there. So that is a strategic value,” he said. “But I think more than anything, we stand by free people. And it’s not right for China to want to dominate the Taiwanese who want their freedom.”
Brig. Gen. Bacon said he wants the United States to send Taiwan sufficient weapons to deter the Chinese regime and to generally forge closer ties with Taiwan, while confronting the regime about human rights abuse allegations against its ethnic and religious minorities, like the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Falun Gong practitioners.