(GoRealNewsNow.com) – The US government has intensified its plans to evacuate American citizens residing in Taiwan, the free and democratic island claimed by Communist China as its territory.
The plans have been “underway” for at least six months, a senior US intelligence source told The Messenger, as cited by Newsmax.
However, they have “heated up over the past two months or so,” the official said.
Taiwan, an island the size of Maryland and as populous as Florida, has been a separate country since the Chinese nationalists fled there from the Communists in 1949.
It has been an unofficial ally of the US, with Washington keeping Beijing guessing if it would intervene if Communist China tries to invade and conquer Taiwan.
The intelligence official said a “heightened level of tension” has spiked the US evacuation preparations. Some 80,000 Americans reside in Taiwan at present.
“It’s nothing you wouldn’t read in the news. Forces building up. China aligning with Russia on Ukraine,” the source commented further.
The report notes the US evacuation plans were developed quietly since they are a “sensitive” matter to Taiwan’s government.
“Even talking about an [evacuation plan] starts people thinking something may be going on even if it is just prudent planning,” a former State Department official told the news outlet.
Mark Cancian, an adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who was involved in the 1975 evacuation from South Vietnam, commented the plans for Taiwan were “a very prudent thing to do.”
“The fact that the US is doing this doesn’t mean that they expect there will be a war. It’s only a statement that there could be a war,” Cancian elaborated.
Taiwan’s geography could pose challenges to evacuation efforts, with one source noting that there often are single main routes between any two points on the island.
It is also noted the US government’s Taiwan evacuation plans began after Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
“Ukraine drove a relook at what the plans were,” one source told the outlet.
“Secretary Austin and other DOD leaders have been very clear. We do not see a conflict in the Taiwan Strait as imminent or inevitable,” the Pentagon commented.
The U.S. has intensified plans to evacuate Americans living in Taiwan, The Messenger reported. https://t.co/r5fx7MImWw
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) June 12, 2023
