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.
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS