December 4, 2023: Taiwan is sending up to 600 of its military personnel to the United States where they will be trained on weapons Taiwan has purchased but not received. The backlog includes about $19 billion worth of weapons purchased from the United States but not yet delivered. Eight billion dollars’ worth of new F-16 jets is part of this. Pilots and maintainers for these aircraft require some training or familiarization for these new F-16 models and that be best done in the United States. Some American trainers are in Taiwan but cannot handle the workload all these purchases have created.

The U.S. has always been a staunch supporter of Taiwan; the Nationalist Chinese faction that lost a civil war to the communists in the late 1940s. The surviving Nationalist troops and leadership retreated to Taiwan and, with American assistance, prevented the Chinese communists from attacking Taiwan. China insists that Taiwan is a rebellious Chinese province and that th. e Americans are assisting the Taiwanese in disrupting Chinese efforts to take possession of Taiwan. The Americans assist Taiwan because it is a pro-American democracy. Communist China considers Taiwan an embarrassing example of how democracy can produce a more prosperous Chinese country. Singapore has done the same thing, but Taiwan is closer to mainland China and was, at one time, considered a part of mainland China.