With just 23 active-duty troops in Taiwan, U.S. to quadruple number, amid China tension: report

The United States is reportedly planning to deploy more troops to Taiwan, more than quadrupling the current number of American service members amid concerns about China escalating military threat.

The Defense Department plans on deploying 100 to 200 troops within the next several months, U.S. officials said, the The Wall Street Journal reports Thursday.

The most recent data available from the Defense Department shows that 23 active-duty U.S. troops, mostly Marines, were stationed in Taiwan in September.

Taiwan has increasingly tried to exert its independence from the China's ruling communist party and align itself with more democratic countries, which has resulted the Beijing flexing its military might.

The United States acknowledges the Chinese government's position that Taiwan is part of China.

The new deployments in Taiwan will expand a training program that the Pentagon has not publicized – over concerns about provoking Beijing, which views Taiwan as a rogue providence that will eventually be under its control.

China has been building up its military and increasingly flashing its power on the global stage. 

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said last week that China sent a spy balloon across the United States earlier this month to study U.S. nuclear capabilities "in the event of a possible future conflict in Taiwan."