Troops from US allies, including Taiwan, have been training at Michigan’s Camp Grayling, a former US diplomat told US lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Joseph Cella, a former US ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu, made the remarks during a US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The US government had not previously confirmed the presence of Taiwanese troops at the US National Guard base.
Photo: Screen grab from a video on the committee’s Web site
Cella, the director of the Michigan China Economic Security and Review Group, said a proposed factory by Chinese lithium-ion battery maker Gotion High Tech Co would be about 113km from Camp Grayling and would pose a threat to the secure US military installation.
“Camp Grayling is the hub of the National All-Domain Warfighting Center, which trains our troops and those of our allies, including Taiwan, in strategic and tactical battle operations,” he said.
The facility is the largest National Guard training facility in the US, the Michigan National Guard Web site says.
During a congressional hearing last year, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner was asked if he agreed that any location, including Camp Grayling, that are training Taiwanese troops should be considered a sensitive site.
Ratner at the time did not confirm that Taiwanese soldiers were at the site, saying that he preferred to discuss topics of military engagement with Taiwan in a classified setting.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Cella discussed the threat the proposed plant posed.
“I witnessed malign influence through a subnational incursion and influence operation by a PRC [People’s Republic of China]-based and CCP-tied lithium-ion battery manufacturer, Gotion, in rural Green Charter Township, Michigan” he said, referring to alleged attempts of bribery and corruption to secure approval of the plant.
“US national security and intelligence agencies convened a group of bipartisan state and local elected officials, and business executives across the country to warn them of China’s political warfare,” he said. “Despite these warnings, all supporting the Gotion project brazenly defied them... And that’s just one of many examples across the United States of how China threatens our national security and sovereignty.”
The factory has become a hot-button political topic in Michigan in the run-up to the US presidential election in early November.
Republicans have spoken out against the plant, while Democrats have been more supportive of it.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS