In a move that could impact Taiwan, the former head of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Timothy Keating, has strongly advocated the acceptance of Chinese students at US military academies.
At this point, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) cadets cannot attend US military academies, while Taiwanese cadets can do so. In the past, the US Congress has looked at how a change in policy might affect attendees from Taiwan’s military and decided to leave restrictions against Chinese cadets in place.
Keating argued for finding a way for both Taiwanese and Chinese cadets to attend US military academies.
At the third annual China Defense and Security Conference in Washington on Thursday, Keating stressed the overwhelming importance of developing better and closer communications with Beijing.
He recalled that on one occasion, when China had suspended military-to-military dialogue with the US as a result of arms sales to Taiwan, he was unable to contact a senior official in Beijing during a potential crisis that could have led to a military clash.
After calling Chinese military headquarters on the “Beijing hotline” for 45 minutes — without getting a reply — he eventually established contact through South Korea.
Citing a potential military crisis in the East China Sea over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan, Keating said it was essential to establish better communications in order to defuse any potential conflicts.
“We need conversation with Chinese officials — we must expand the dialogue,” he added.
He said that the US should try to attract Chinese military students to attend the US’ academies and at the same time send young military officers from the US to study in China.
It was a fundamental way to establish military friendships and develop contacts, he said.
Keating said a student swap might start with the Coast Guard Academies and build up from there.
“I am less interested in the exact spot [for training], as in the opportunities we can provide to disabuse the Chinese of ideas that we are looking to contain them — that is just not the case,” he said.
He said the US military would “love” to send students to study at Chinese military academies and have Chinese students at military academies in the US.
“But you can’t do that, according to Congress, it’s a law,” he added.
“I think the academies would love it, the Chinese would love it. They told me that when I was there,” Keating said.
“We have got to work on the State Department, and we have got to work on Congressional reluctance and resistance,” he added.
He said that a “concerted effort” needed to be made to open talks on the possibility of a military student exchange with Beijing.
He reiterated that it might start with “one small step,” such as establishing a program with the Coast Guard Academy or the Merchant Marine Academy.
“It could yield significant dividends — I would be enthusiastically in the corner of this one,” Keating said.
During a question-and-answer session, a Congressional expert in the audience told Keating that the main reason there was no cadet exchange program with Beijing was that the US had a long-standing policy of accepting cadets from Taiwan.
Keating suggested that any problems having Chinese and Taiwanese military cadets together at the same time might be cleared up through negotiations.
He added that Chinese and Taiwanese officials both attended the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies.
“Chinese and Taiwanese folks are in the building at the same time, not necessarily in the same room, but in the same building,” Keating said.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
RSS