A report that a group of Taiwanese marines have been sent on a one-month training program in Guam as part of a Taiwan-US defense cooperation and exchange program is correct, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said yesterday.
The program is one of a number of “long-standing” bilateral exchange projects between Taipei and Washington, Chiu said, without elaborating.
Chiu made the comments on the sidelines of a hearing at the legisature in Taipei when asked by reporters to comment on a report about the program in the Chinese-language Apple Daily.
Photo: CNA
The Marine Corps has sent a platoon of 40 marines for month-long amphibious landing training at the US military base in Guam to enhance their combat capabilities, the report said.
Taiwanese and US marines would also undergo training for joint operations to learn the latest US Marine Corps tactics, it added.
Chiu’s comments came after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Thursday last week confirmed for the first time the presence of US troops in Taiwan helping to train the military to counter threats posed by China.
Taiwan has “a wide range of cooperation with the US aiming at increasing our defense capability,” Tsai told CNN.
She did not specify how many US service personnel were in Taiwan, saying only that the number was “not as many as people thought.”
International media last year reported that the US had been rotating a small number of US Marines and Special Operations Forces to train the Taiwanese military amid rising tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
At that time Chiu denied that US troops had been deployed to Taiwan, describing US military personnel as being in Taiwan for military training “exchanges” with their Taiwanese counterparts.
China said that it had long been aware that US military personnel regularly visited Taiwan, but accused Tsai of provocation by making such visits public.
Chiu yesterday reiterated his stance that US military trainers and consultants were in Taiwan only on short-term assignments and have not been posted or deployed.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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