The US Is Preparing Evacuation Plans for American Citizens in Taiwan (Exclusive)

The U.S. government is preparing evacuation plans for American citizens living in Taiwan, three sources told The Messenger. 

The planning has been underway for at least six months and “it’s heated up over the past two months or so,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the planning. 

The official said a “heightened level of tension” had driven the preparations. “It’s nothing you wouldn’t read in the news,” he told The Messenger. “Forces building up. China aligning with Russia on Ukraine.”

Other governments have already drawn up evacuation plans for Taiwan or are in the process of doing so –- including Indonesia, which has roughly 300,000 citizens in Taiwan, the largest foreign population on the island, made up mostly of migrant workers. Officials from the Philippines, which has about 150,000 citizens in Taiwan, have also said they have contingency plans in place. And last year, Japan and Taiwan began talks on an evacuation plan for Japanese citizens. 

Evacuating Americans – a fraught history 

U.S. policy states that the government may assist with an evacuation of American citizens under the right conditions, but it doesn’t guarantee such support. The Biden administration has come under fire for not providing enough help to Americans – most recently in Sudan, where heavy fighting erupted in April. The U.S. initially said it would not conduct an evacuation because few people had requested one; later, the government reversed its position and arranged several convoys out of Khartoum.  

In the case of Afghanistan, hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. were left behind in the frenetic and dangerous last days of the evacuation from Kabul. That experience likely weighs heavily on the minds of U.S. officials working on plans for Taiwan, Cancian said. 

“The tension is that the U.S. government wouldn’t want to pull personnel out too soon because that would signal lack of confidence,” he said. “But they wouldn’t want to wait too late because then they wouldn’t be able to get everyone out.”

themessenger.com