Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen admitted on Thursday that a small number of American troops are in the country to help train their local military to defend the island in the event China attacks it.
In recent weeks, tensions between Taiwan and China, which believes that it owns the self-governing island, have escalated especially in the face of Beijing demonstrating their military and political capabilities.
"We have a wide range of cooperation with the U.S. aiming at increasing our defense capability," President Tsai told CNN during an interview, as reported by NBC News. "I do have faith given the long-term relationship we have with the U.S. and also the support of the people of the U.S. as well as Congress."
The move comes at the heels of China test-launching a hypersonic weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The hypersonic weaponry is unique in that the U.S. cannot detect or defeat it. In fact, an American top general compared the weapons to the launch of the groundbreaking Soviet Sputnik satellite that provided the USSR an advantage in the 1957 space race.
"What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning," Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Mark Milley said during a conversation with Bloomberg, as per CBN News. "I don't know if it's quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it's very close to that. It has all of our attention."
Gen. Milley added that China's new weapon is "an enormous change in the character of war." The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the first Pentagon official to confirm on the record the nature of test the Chinese military had carried out this year, which the Financial Times reported was "a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon that was launched into space and orbited the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and gliding toward its target in China."
While Gen. Milley refused to speak about the details because it involved classified intelligence, he admitted that the U.S. is also working on hypersonic weapons armed with flight trajectory, speed and maneuverability that can also evade early warning systems that are part of missile defenses. However, the U.S. has not yet conducted a hypersonic weapon test, unlike its Chinese adversaries.
Meanwhile, retiring U.S. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Hyten has disclosed how far behind the U.S. is in terms of hypersonic missile testing, the Gateway Pundit reported. According to the report, the general spoke with The Examiner to remark that while China has done hundreds of tests, the U.S. has done nine.
"In the last five years, maybe longer, the United States has done nine hypersonic tests. In the same time, the Chinese have done hundreds," General Hyten commented. "Single digits versus hundreds is not a good place."
However, the general said that this does not mean the U.S. isn't "moving fast in the development process of hypersonics." Gen. Hyten explained that the reason why the U.S. has a significantly lower number of hypersonic tests is because the American "approach to development is fundamentally different."
Gen. Hyten added, "Calling China a pacing threat is a useful term because the pace at which China is moving is stunning."
The U.S. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believes that China will eventually "surpass Russia and the United States if we don't do something to change it."
