U.S. Army to assist in combat training in Taiwan against Chinese Communist Party

The U.S. and Taiwan continue to strengthen military cooperation to counter the threat of the Chinese Communist Party. According to Taiwanese media reports, U.S. Army Security Cooperation Brigade (SFAB) officers and soldiers were stationed in Taiwan in April to help guide Taiwan’s Army in combat training.

Taiwan’s United Daily News reported on May 16 that a large number of U.S. Army SFAB officers and soldiers were stationed at the Joint Test Center in the Northern District of Army Forces Training in Hsinchu Hukou, Taiwan, in April. U.S. military formations covering all branches of service, in an advisory capacity to observe Taiwan’s joint military battalions at the base to conduct air, land and sea combat training, and the implementation of guidance recommendations.

An unnamed base officer confirmed that the Taiwan Army’s Department of Corrections and the U.S. Pacific Command are jointly promoting the operation.

The U.S. Army has five active-duty security cooperation brigades and an additional security cooperation brigade in the National Guard unit. Each brigade, with about 600 troops, was previously deployed in the Middle East, and now U.S. forces are beginning to withdraw from the Middle East, shifting their focus to the Indo-Pacific region.

In fact, for many years, the U.S. and ROC militaries have been engaged in military exchanges, but the two sides have not been open to the outside world.

United Press reported on June 29, 2020, that the U.S. Army’s 1st Special Operations Group’s “EXCELLENCE” unit propaganda video released in February 2019 featured a helicopter with a blue sky and white sun flag logo, indicating that U.S. forces were in Taiwan.

The U.S. Army’s 1st Special Operations Group propaganda video features a helicopter with the emblem of the Blue Sky and White Sun flag. (Screenshot of the video)

The footage also shows a number of U.S. soldiers and a special operations soldier in a Taiwanese camouflage uniform simulating a tactical search and attack in a Taiwanese camp and evacuation by a Taiwanese UH-60M Blackhawk helicopter.

Taiwan Ministry of National Defense spokesman Shi Shunwen later confirmed that “the U.S. Army released footage about the disclosure of the Taiwan-U.S. military training collaboration, are normal military exchanges, the national army are in accordance with the annual plan to implement the Taiwan-U.S. military exchanges.

It is reported that the training footage exposed in the propaganda film is the U.S. military in Taiwan codenamed “Balance Tamper” (Balance Tamper) operations. The two sides perform one to two times a year, according to the mission and needs of both sides, by the U.S. Army’s 1st Special Operations Group, which sends its ODA special operations detachment to Taiwan and Taiwan’s special operations forces, to implement joint training.

An anonymous ROC military source told the Central News Agency that the U.S. and Taiwan have been conducting joint exercises and training in special operations for more than 10 years.

He said, “The exchange between the ROC military and the U.S. military is an open secret, for example, the size and use of the U.S. Army’s special operations detachment (ODA, Operational Detachment Alpha) has been implemented in the ROC’s special operations units; in addition, the promotion of officers and soldiers with ‘Emergency Medical Technician ( In addition, the promotion of officers and soldiers with ’emergency medical technician (EMT-1)’ and ‘combat casualty care (TCCC)’ and other certificates with the ability to rescue, is also based on how the U.S. military to improve the survival rate in the battlefield.”

The military source said that in the past, Taiwan “could only do and not say” about military exchanges between the two sides. Now that U.S.-Taiwan relations have warmed up, it has become “doable, but said by the U.S.”.

The U.S. is deliberately trying to counter the Chinese Communist Party through “official leaks,” according to Lin Yingyou, an assistant professor at the Institute of Strategic and International Affairs at CKSU. At that time, the atmosphere in the Taiwan Strait was tense, and planes and ships of the Communist Party and the U.S. military appeared in the airspace and waters around Taiwan several times in succession.

Since this year, the situation in the Taiwan Strait has further heated up, with CCP military aircraft continuing to harass Taiwan’s airspace and sending aircraft carrier formations to rehearse in the waters near the Taiwan Strait to threaten Taiwan. At the same time, the U.S. and Taiwan are also strengthening their military deployments, and the U.S. is actively joining forces with Japan, Britain, France, Australia and other countries to deploy military forces and conduct joint military exercises around the Taiwan Strait to deter the Chinese Communist Party.