High Level Visit to Taiwan by FBI and US Military Officer Likely This Week

On June 6th, Taiwanese media United Daily News published a report stating that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation will be hosting an alumni conference in Taipei in the coming week. According to UDN, FBI Associate Deputy Director Paul Abbate will be visiting Taiwan between June 9th and June 14th.

Notably, the report revealed that an officer ranked Brigadier or Major General belonging to the US Indo Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) will be visiting Taiwan. President Tsai Ing-wen, according to the report, will also be making a public opening remarks at the conference’s opening ceremony.

According to the report, a delegation composed of around 100 people will be visiting Taiwan. The size of the delegation, by the norm of US delegations to Taiwan, is an unusually large one. Though the report states that the delegation will be holding closed-door panels and discussions, a visit from a one- or two-star US general is significant if his visit is made official and public. There has not been an official visit by a US military official of this rank since the severance of US-ROC relations and the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979.

The conference, named the 22nd Asia Pacific Chapter Conference of the FBI National Academy Association, has been held regularly by the association throughout Asia. It is the first time the annual conference is held in Taiwan.

The dates of the visit incidentally match the dates of the primary polls of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, though it is likely that the conference has been planned months ahead. It does, however, brings attention to the strategic and security implication of such a visit, which is occurring at a crucial time during Taiwan’s election cycle.

“It likely has to do with the cyber cooperation that the US and Taiwan are working on,” speculates a source in Washington DC familiar with US-Taiwan military relations who asked not to be named in response to this information, which has not been reported by any major US media, “using Taiwan’s election as a bell-weather for potential Chinese interference in the 2020 election in the US.”

“Given the extreme intelligence and political warfare threats facing Taiwan, this could not come at a better time,” tweeted Friday by Ian Easton, Senior Fellow at Project 2049 Institute, a China-focused Washington DC Think Tank, and author of The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy in Asia.

There has been increasingly a concern on China’s influence operations abroad within the US government. “We know that China is going to interfere in Taiwan’s election,” said Senator Cory Gardner, a long time supporter of stronger US support for Taiwan who visited Taiwan in May, during a June 5th US Senate event on the remembrance of Tiananmen Square Incident at its 30th anniversary,

The news likely originates from a leak from Taiwan’s military, given the language used in the original report.

The event will be held from June 9th to June 14th at Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taipei. The US Indo Pacific Command was previously named the US Asia Pacific Command (USPACOM), and had the name changed in May 2018. It is the largest theater of command of the US military. The 7th fleet stationed in Japan, largest of all US fleets, belongs to USINDOPACOM.