A total of 41 US military personnel were stationed in Taiwan as of December last year, a US congressional report said on Friday last week ahead of Tuesday’s passage of an aid package that included US$8 billion for Taiwan.
The Congressional Research Service in a report titled Taiwan Defense Issues for Congress said that according to the US Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center, 41 US military personnel were assigned for duty in Taiwan.
Although the normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979 included a vow to withdraw a military presence from Taiwan, “observers have indicated that it is an ‘open secret’ that small numbers of US military personnel conduct work in an advisory capacity” in Taiwan, it said.
Photo: CNA
US defense officials have said they “do not have a comment on specific operations, engagements or training” related to engagements with Taiwan, the report said.
The Wall Street Journal in February last year reported that the US was to send 100 to 200 military training personnel to Taiwan “in the coming months,” which was not confirmed by officials on either side.
In February, US military news Web site SOFREP reported that US Green Berets were permanently stationed in Kinmen County to train Taiwanese forces, which US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral John Aquilino denied.
SOFREP also highlighted challenges within Taiwan in relation to its defense, saying that there is an apparent lack of trust between elected leaders and the military, which has traditionally been aligned with the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
It also said that there was vulnerability in the nation’s energy, food, water and Internet supply, and it struggles to recruit, train and retain personnel.
“At a societal level, it is not clear what costs — in terms of economic security, physical safety and security, and lives — Taiwan’s people would be willing or able to bear in the face of possible PRC armed aggression,” SOFREP said.
The US and Taiwan “appear to be quietly expanding training activities,” while outlining recent and pending arms transfers to Taiwan, it added.
In other news, progress on stationing a US munitions stockpile in Taiwan is unclear, but there is an “approximate plan” in place, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said yesterday in response to questions about whether Washington is moving forward with plans to move its East Asia stockpile to Taiwan.
Chiu was responding to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) about progress regarding the alleged stockpile.
On March 6 last year, Chiu told lawmakers that Taipei was “in talks” with the US military on moving its East Asia stockpile to Taiwan.
Chiu yesterday told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee that the issue must be approached with caution, as it involves sensitive political considerations.
There are many ways to define a “stockpile,” he said, adding that the nature of armaments and weaponry is vastly different.
If it were a maintenance center, there would naturally be spare parts and equipment sent in, he said, adding that everything is still in the proposal stage and is open to discussion.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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