Marines working on Taiwan defense?

 Newsweek:

At a time when U.S.-China tensions are once again on the rise over President Joe Biden's decision to invite Taiwan to an upcoming virtual conference, the U.S. Marine Corps is preparing for the outbreak of a potential crisis by returning to its roots as an elite island-hopping force.

But whether this would be enough to win a war, or even deter an attack, remains a question looming between the world's two top powers and, by extension, the rest of the world.

News of the Marines' shift to a more traditional mission with echoes of the World War II Pacific Campaign was first undertaken by Commandant General David Berger, appointed in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, under whom a severe downturn in relations with China first occurred. The new techniques have since been demonstrated in a series of exercises, including this April's Noble Fury off the coast of Japan and July's Summer Fury off the coast of California.

One of these techniques is a new training program called the Infantry Marine Course (IMC), which a U.S. Marine Corps Training and Education Command official told Newsweek was "a direct reflection of the Commandant's Planning Guidance that dictates the requirement for smarter, better-trained multi-disciplinary infantry Marines."

"IMC creates a more flexible force that will be able to operate and persist in austere conditions while thriving in contested environments," the official said. "IMC creates a better trained and more lethal entry-level Infantry Marine who is prepared for 21st century competition and conflict, contributing to the overall lethality and capability of infantry battalions upon arrival."

Essentially, a branch that describes itself as the military's "premier crisis response force" is restructuring from tactics primarily suited for countering insurgencies to taking on near-peer competitors, with China on the top of the list of powers closing the gap of U.S. supremacy at sea.

"We are optimizing the Marine Corps for the demands of naval expeditionary warfare in the maritime littorals to support Fleet operations and enable joint force access, while imposing significant cost on the enemy," U.S. Marine Corps spokesperson Major Jim Stenger told Newsweek.
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The Marines are eschewing heavy equipment like tanks and using lighter rockets as artillery.  They could also use insurgency tactics to deal with some enemies.