Taiwan Strait, the U.S. has decided to increase its long-term deployment of nuclear
submarines in Guam from three to ten. At any one time, some 100,000 bombs and
missiles as well as 66 million gallons of jet fuel are now stored at Guam’s Andersen Air
Force Base, making it the biggest strategic ‘gas-and-go’ airbase in the world (Kaplan
2005: 58-9). Given its relative strategic proximity to China, there is no prize for
guessing why Guam now becomes a pivot point of America’s military redeployment.
William Fallon, the leader of the U.S. Pacific Command, openly stated that the island is
primarily a staging area through which troops, ships, and planes would surge towards
contingencies in Asia (Halloran, 2006). In March 2002, the leaked Nuclear Posture
Review disclosed U.S. plans for nuclear strikes against China as well as other ‘rogue-
states’ (Battye 2002). In July 2004, in an exercise codenamed ‘Operation Summer Pulse
04’, the U.S. unprecedentedly assembled seven aircraft carrier strike groups (CSGs) to
rendezvous in waters within striking distance from China’s coasts. As Ching Cheong
(2004) notes, usually one CSG is dispatched to a hot spot as a reminder of American
presence, while in a combat situation three to four are deployed, as in the recent Iraq
war, but never before had seven of its twelve CSGs in peace time been sent to the same
theatre. Therefore, by sending seven CSGs, the U.S. has also sent China a stern
message.
Propping up Taiwan
Military strength needs to be in the service of moral clarity. Consequently, the third
element of their China policy triad is a sympathetic policy towards Taiwan’s
independence-leaning government. For example, the USCC’s lengthy report in 2004
repeatedly urged Congress and the Bush administration to ‘conduct a fresh assessment
of the one China policy’, citing the ‘changing realities’ in China and Taiwan (USCC
2004: 9, 125). In February 2004, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard
Lawless and his State Department counterpart Randall Schriver testified at a
congressionally-mandated hearing. In their coordinated testimonies, Lawless not only
explained that U.S. law required America to give full defence support to Taiwan, but
also applauded that this was simply ‘good policy’ to protect ‘freedom and democracy’.
In the meantime, Lawless also revealed the full range of U.S. military cooperation with
Taiwan, from providing defence articles and services, to developing an integrated
national security strategy, joint doctrine, and integrated capabilities for training,
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Convention