Former national security advisor John Bolton on Thursday praised President Biden’s decision to increase the number of U.S. troops stationed in Taiwan, but noted that “we can do a lot more.”
“I think this is the right thing to do,” Bolton said in an interview with John Catsimatidis on WABC’s “Cats & Cosby.”
The U.S. is reportedly planning to more than quadruple the number of troops deployed to Taiwan, sending between 100 and 200 troops over the next few months as part of a training program, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
However, Bolton, who served under former President Trump from 2018 to 2019, said he would do even more.
“I would homeport a couple of American naval vessels at Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s big harbor, and show the Chinese that we’re gonna be there training and assisting the Taiwanese against any possible Chinese attack,” he said.
“The aim here is not to win a war that China starts; the aim here is to deter China from doing it,” Bolton added. “And believe me, we can do a lot more to do that.”
Bolton, who also served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, noted that China is closely watching how the war in Ukraine unfolds.
“I think that they clearly have their eye on Taiwan,” he told Catsimatidis. “They’re watching what we’re doing in Ukraine to judge whether we really can defend, give the weapons for the Ukrainians to defend themselves adequately.”
“Their bet is if the United States can’t rally Europe to defend a European country attacked by Russa in this case, what are they going to do if the Chinese attacks Taiwan or islands in the East China Sea, islands in the South China Sea?” Bolton continued. “And so, a lot rides on this because the Chinese are trying to gauge, in particular, whether the Biden administration is really up to it.”
Taiwan also appears to be keeping a close eye on the war in Ukraine. Following a recent visit to the island nation, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) said “almost every Taiwanese official” he met with pointed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a “wake-up call” for Taiwan to begin stockpiling weapons.
“We need to be moving heaven and earth to arm Taiwan to the teeth to avoid a war,” Gallagher, the chair of the newly created Select Committee on China, added in an interview with The Washington Post.