The organizers of the multinational Joint Exercise Cobra Gold on Wednesday said that Taiwan’s listing as a participant in the regional exercises being staged in Thailand was an error that has since been corrected.
The Cobra Gold Combined Joint Information Bureau (CJIB) said in an e-mail about the delisting that it “acknowledges a transcription error in a recent news post regarding the participation of Taiwan in Cobra Gold 2025.”
The “inaccurate information” about Taiwan’s participation was due to “a misinterpretation during the transcription process” and was “inadvertently published on official platforms,” the CJIB said.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Korean Marine Corps command
“Upon identifying the error, the content was promptly corrected, and Taiwan was removed from the post and story,” the CJIB said.
However, it noted that the original post had been screen-captured and used by media in reports on the annual exercises, which are cosponsored by Thailand and the US, and are usually joined by about 30 nations.
“Taiwan is not a participant in Cobra Gold 25,” the CJIB said. “At no time has the US Department of Defense officially recognized Taiwan as a participant in Cobra Gold 2025.”
The CJIB’s response followed wide reporting on Tuesday about a CJIB post on Facebook, which listed Taiwan as a participant in the annual joint exercise, but was removed a few hours later.
The original post said in the opening paragraph that “more than 200 service members from the US, Thailand, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan gathered on the parade ground at Camp Suranaree, Thailand, Feb. 25, to usher in the start of Cobra Gold 2025.”
In the revised version, “Taiwan” was removed from the post.
Due its diplomatic isolation, Taiwan is usually not allowed to join international military exercises, including those organized by the US.
Asked on Tuesday about the Cobra Gold 2025 exercises, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) said his ministry could not comment on issue, given “the lack of official diplomatic ties with all the countries involved.”
“We have full respect for the organizers’ decision on whether to make public such information,” Po said in response to the question of whether the original CJIB post on Facebook had accidentally revealed Taiwan’s secret participation in the exercises.
He hoped the controversy this year would not hinder Taiwan’s possible participation in regional military exercises in the future, he said.
Since its inception in 1982, Cobra Gold has evolved from a bilateral maritime exercise between the US and Thailand into the world’s longest-running multinational military exercise, embodying decades of cooperation and partnership in the Indo-Pacific region, according to the Web site of the US Indo-Pacific Command.
The exercises are being held this year from yesterday until Friday next week in Thailand.
As well as the other countries listed in the post, China, India and Australia are “limited participating nations,” while about 20 other nations are engaged as part of the Multinational Planning Augmentation Team, or as observer nations, bringing the total number of participating countries to about 30, with more than 8,000 personnel involved, according to the CJIB.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the