The same argument could have been made much more credibly for the US bases in the Gulf before this war, but what we actually saw was that those bases turned out to be liabilities and sitting ducks for Iranian missile and drone target practice.
At no point in this war were they able to mass enough ground forces anywhere near Iran to invade even a small island like Kharg.
Any bases in Taiwan, Japan or occupied Korea, all would face the same fate except ten times worse because China’s capabilities are incomparably larger. Massing an invasion force while Chinese satellites see everything and tens of thousands of Chinese missiles and drones can hit everything is basically suicidal.
The same argument could have been made much more credibly for the US bases in the Gulf before this war, but what we actually saw was that those bases turned out to be liabilities and sitting ducks for Iranian missile and drone target practice.
At no point in this war were they able to mass enough ground forces anywhere near Iran to invade even a small island like Kharg.
Any bases in Taiwan, Japan or occupied Korea, all would face the same fate except ten times worse because China’s capabilities are incomparably larger. Massing an invasion force while Chinese satellites see everything and tens of thousands of Chinese missiles and drones can hit everything is basically suicidal.