‘There is absolutely no indication that we expect an imminent crisis,’ a State Department spokesperson said.
Congress might require the Pentagon to draft a plan to evacuate Americans from Taiwan, if a provision from the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act sticks.
One provision within the massive defense-policy bill, which Congress passes annually, tasks the secretary of defense to work with the secretary of state on maintaining plans for noncombatant-evacuation operations or similar evacuation missions that the Pentagon would carry out.
Talk about a potential Chinese military attack targeting the country has grown more prominent in recent years given Beijing’s intensifying military drills and increasingly alarming rhetoric. U.S. officials have also registered a desire to act in the near future, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning last year that although General Secretary Xi has not made a decision to invade, China wants to annex Taiwan on a “much faster timeline.”
Recent reports suggest that the government is putting together such an evacuation plan. U.S. government sources told the Messenger last month that officials started working on an evacuation plan about six months ago. That planning was not prompted by any new intelligence, the outlet’s sources said, characterizing it as a precautionary reaction to the ongoing Chinese military threat.
The Messenger did not specify which agencies are involved in the evacuation planning, and the Pentagon did not comment specifically on the matter.
If the House NDAA provision passes, however, the secretary of defense would be required to provide classified and unclassified briefings to Congress about the plan. House lawmakers passed the legislation last week, and the Senate will soon advance its own version.
In 2019, a State Department publication revealed that estimates place the number of U.S. citizens in Taiwan at 80,000. A spokesperson for the department, however, declined to provide a current estimate when asked by National Review, saying that because U.S. citizens abroad are not required to register with the State Department, it does not want to provide an estimate that “cannot be considered authoritative.”
“It is not routine U.S. policy to evacuate private U.S. citizens from areas of conflict. There is absolutely no indication that we expect an imminent crisis or need to evacuate U.S. citizens from Taiwan,” the spokesperson said, adding that the department takes its commitment to the safety and security of Americans seriously.
“The Department of State and our embassies and consulates abroad have routine procedures in place to ensure preparedness for any type of emergency,” the spokesperson said.
The Pentagon referred NR to remarks made by White House national-security spokesman John Kirby immediately following the Messenger report. At the time, Kirby said that it’s not routine U.S. policy to evacuate private citizens from hot spots and that there’s no indication that the situation in Taiwan requires revisiting that policy.
The issue of the mass evacuation of Americans from conflict zones has come up repeatedly in recent years, with the administration’s handling of the shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan turning the topic into a political football.
Meanwhile in Taiwan, preparations for a potential Chinese invasion are ongoing, and the country’s All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency plans to hold nationwide disaster-response drills this month.