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TAIPEI: A two-star Navy admiral who oversees US military intelligence in the Asia-Pacific region has paid an unannounced visit to Taiwan, two sources told Reuters on Sunday (November 22), on a trip from high level that could irritate China.
The sources, which include a Taiwanese official familiar with the situation, said the official was Rear Admiral Michael Studeman. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to the Navy website, Studeman is director of J2, which oversees intelligence, in the US Army’s Indo-Pacific Command.
The Pentagon declined to comment, as did the Taiwan Defense Ministry. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Sunday that a US official had arrived in Taiwan, but declined to provide details, saying the trip had not been made public.
China, which claims to democratically rule Taiwan as its own territory, reacted with fury when US Secretary of Health Alex Azar arrived in Taipei in August, followed by US Under Secretary of State Keith Krach in September, sending fighter jets close to the island every time.
The Trump administration has increased support for Taiwan, including with new arms sales, alarming China.
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It was not immediately clear whether Studeman’s visit would be seen as an escalation by Beijing. Still, he could be one of the highest-ranking US military officers known to have visited Taipei in recent years.
Douglas Paal, a former head of the US representative office in Taiwan and now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: “If it is Indopacom J2 Studeman, I know of no precedent for such a visit.”
But Randall Schriver, a former under secretary of defense for Asia during the Trump administration, said that the Trump Pentagon had been quietly sending one-star flag officers to Taiwan on a routine basis.
He noted that the United States and Taiwan had close intelligence exchanges on the threat from China’s military.
Bonnie Glaser, a regional security expert at the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said it would not be unheard of for an American flag officer to visit Taipei.
UNMARKED AIRCRAFT
The Taiwanese and US military have a close relationship, although they rarely mention those ties in public.
Eric Sayers, who worked as an advisor to former PACOM commander Admiral Harry Harris and is now a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said he understood that two-star officers had visited Taiwan before.
“However, the objective of both parties has been to keep these exchanges between the military discreet, so that they can continue in a regularized manner,” he said.
Taiwan’s United Daily News published images of an unidentified private jet, which it identified as a US military aircraft, arriving at Songshan Airport in central Taipei, and what appeared to be officials waiting at its VIP terminal.
Data from the flight tracking website planefinder.net showed a private flight arriving from Hawaii, home to the Indo-Pacific Command headquarters, to Songshan Airport on Sunday afternoon, shortly before the United Daily News publish the images on your website.
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In a brief statement, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said there were frequent interactions with the United States and that “we welcome the visit of the US official.”
“But since this itinerary has not been made public, based on mutual trust between Taiwan and the United States, the Foreign Ministry has no further explanation or comment,” he added.
However, he said in a separate statement that Taiwanese media reports that a delegation led by CIA chief Gina Haspel had arrived in Taiwan were false and that Haspel had no plans to come.
The de facto US embassy in Taipei declined to comment.
The United States, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but it is the democratic island’s largest sponsor and international arms supplier.
Taiwan Prime Minister Su Tseng-chang said last week that the Chief of Staff of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, will visit Taiwan. The US media said the trip is likely to be next month.
