Some of the criticisms lobbed at the Biden administration, however, have gotten certain facts wrong.
Cornyn, however, incorrectly claimed that the US had 30,000 troops in Taiwan. The tweet, sent out Monday evening, was deleted Tuesday — 13 hours after being posted. “US Troops today in…Taiwan — 30,000,” Cornyn wrote.
“America positioned thousands of troops in Hong Kong and Taiwan, abruptly starting in 1954,” the report on global US deployments from 1950 to 2003 says.
According to the report, a rapid increase of troops in Taiwan went “from 811 to 4,174 troops in 1954, peaking in 1958 at 19,000 and then stabilizing between 4,000 and 10,000 until 1977.”
The report — which is based on calculations from DoD annual reports — notes that American forces started being removed in 1973 with all troops withdrawn in 1979.
Cornyn’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
The Chinese government, which falsely denies Taiwan’s existence as a sovereign nation, quickly used the tweet to make hypothetical threats against the US through its state-run media.
CNN’s Daniel Dale contributed to this report.
Source : Nbcnewyork