During President Donald Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom, he announced that the U.S. is “trying to get back” the former American-operated Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, in part to counter the threat of China’s growing military in the region. The comments came as a Chinese military official declared that the communist regime is “always ready” to defeat any foreign efforts at defending Taiwan.

During a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, Trump stated that before former President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, he had planned to pull U.S. military forces from the middle eastern country “with strength and dignity, and we were going to keep Bagram, the big air base — one of the biggest air bases in the world.” The president went on to note that “One of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons.”

Bagram is located about 500 miles from China’s western border, not far from Beijing’s nuclear and missile facilities located in the Xinjiang province. As noted by The Economic Times, the loss of Bagram to Taliban control in 2021 was devastating for the U.S. for a number of reasons, including its infrastructure of vast runways, “hardened shelters, hospitals, fuel depots, and housing for tens of thousands of troops,” as well as its location in central Asia from which the U.S. “could project power in almost every direction,” including surveillance of Russian and Chinese military activity and infrastructure projects.

Trump’s comments came at the same time that Xi Jinping’s communist regime appeared to escalate its aggressive rhetoric toward Taiwan, the small island nation that sits just 80 miles off of China’s southeastern coast. Taiwan, formed after China’s nationalist government fled the mainland in 1949 following its loss to communist forces during the country’s civil war, has an independent, democratically elected government and has become the world’s 21st largest economy. China’s communist regime has openly sought to “reunify” with Taiwan, which it considers a breakaway province, despite the Taiwanese government consistently and publicly maintaining its independence.

On Thursday, China’s Defense Minister Dong Jun redoubled the communist regime’s aggressive rhetoric toward Taiwan, declaring that Beijing’s military stands at the ready. “The historical and legal facts that Taiwan is part of China are beyond doubt, and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is always ready to defeat any external interference by force,” he stated. “…We will never allow any ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist schemes to succeed, and we are always ready to defeat any external interference by force.”

In order to intimidate Taiwan, China’s military has carried out numerous sophisticated drills close to Taiwan’s shores, which have risen in number and scope significantly since 2022. In August of that year, following then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit, the regime held its largest-ever exercises, including live-fire drills, missile launches, and a naval blockade around the entire island. The regime carried out another blockade drill of the island in April 2023 following a visit by then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, as well as sending 103 warplanes into airspace around Taiwan in a single day in September.

The following year brought even more intense drills, as China’s military did joint exercises between its Army and Coast Guard for the first time in May. Then in October, the regime once again encircled the island, which involved a record deployment of naval and Coast Guard vessels along with over 150 aircraft. In April of 2025, China carried out yet another large-scale drill that involved simulated precision strikes on infrastructure as well as more blockade exercises involving an aircraft carrier group.

Experts like Lt. Col. (Ret.) Bob Maginnis, who serves as senior fellow for National Security at Family Research Council, point out that Biden’s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan opened up opportunities for China.

“As soon as we left Afghanistan in 2021, China poured in, and they are getting ready to exploit the minerals there,” he told The Washington Stand. “Now, it’s going to take a while to do that, so Beijing will not be at all happy if we establish ourselves once again in Afghanistan. So I think it’s a great idea, but probably one that won’t come to fruition. China will vigorously oppose it and provide incentives for Afghanistan not to bend to our desires.”

As to whether or not China will attempt to invade Taiwan in the near future, Maginnis argued that Xi Jinping’s regime is actively preparing for the possibility.

“We did get some indications on the 3rd of September during the military parade in the wake of the Shanghai Cooperative Organizations meeting, where Xi stood next to Putin and Kim Jong Un,” he observed. “Now, that’s about messages. It’s about what the authoritarians are thinking long term to transform the global order into something more to their liking. I do believe, though, that the Chinese historically, as in 1950 in Korea and in 1979 Vietnam, will make a political decision before their military is necessarily ready. Now their military, according to Xi, is supposed to be ready by 2027. The rhetoric, the psychological warfare, the military exercises both in the air and on the sea, and the buildup on the east coast of mainland China suggest that they’re making all the moves to prepare for an invasion. So, it’s problematic to say that the least.”