The United States and Japanese media have reported that the Michigan National Guard is training the military, but the US has not responded directly. Former US Ambassador and founder of the Michigan China Economic Security Group, Cella, recently confirmed in Congress that the Taiwanese military is being trained at the Michigan National Guard focusing on land, sea, air, space, and cyber domains in a global warfare center.
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the Michigan National Guard trains the military, including annual exercises held at Camp Grayling in northern Michigan with multiple countries participating. The Japanese Nikkei newspaper pointed out in the same year that the US is conducting training through the National Guard instead of the military, mainly considering not to provoke the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) too much.
On the 24th, the US House Oversight and Reform Committee held a hearing on “CCP Political Warfare Against the US,” attended by former US ambassadors to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu, including Cella. After leaving the diplomatic field, Cella founded the “Michigan China Economic Security Review Group” in his hometown.
In his testimony, he mentioned witnessing the malign impact caused by Gotion Inc., a CCP-related electric vehicle battery manufacturer, infiltrating rural areas of Michigan, which is one of many examples threatening national security and sovereignty in the US.
Cella pointed out that Gotion’s planned lithium battery plant in Michigan is only about 70 miles away from Camp Grayling. Camp Grayling is the hub of the National All-Domain Warfighting Center, responsible for providing strategic and tactical combat training for US forces and allied forces, including the Taiwanese military.
Michigan is a stronghold of the US National Guard, and according to the Michigan National Guard website, the National All-Domain Warfighting Center focuses on ground, air, sea, space, and cyber warfare domains, providing realistic live-fire combat training through joint services to maximize defense preparedness and offer training and testing opportunities for other government agencies.
The website states that troops will be trained on Lake Huron, the second-largest lake in the US, surrounding areas, and airspace, as well as training at Lake Margrethe in Camp Grayling to achieve various maritime and near-shore training objectives.
During a hearing last year, Michigan Representative Moolenaar questioned whether training Taiwan’s military at Camp Grayling should be considered a “sensitive site,” to which Ely Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs, expressed the hope to discuss US-Taiwan military cooperation issues in a classified setting. Exposing military cooperation supporting Taiwan would not be beneficial for the US.
At the hearing on the 24th, Cella also mentioned witnessing the CCP’s political and economic warfare in the Indo-Pacific region, successfully bypassing the first and second island chains, posing threats to Hawaii, Guam, US territories, and regional friends and allies.
Cella cited the example of Kiribati cutting ties with Taiwan in September 2019. When he became ambassador in December of the same year, State Department colleagues either had no knowledge of the situation before the diplomatic shift or lacked a clear answer as to the specific reasons for the rupture.
He noted that a “Friendship Bridge” funded by the US Department of Defense in Kiribati had become rusty and unusable. When he sought funds to rebuild the bridge, the China National Railways Group intervened, constructing an auxiliary cement bridge. As far as he knows, the “Friendship Bridge” remains dilapidated and impassable.
Among the Pacific Island countries, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati severed ties with Taiwan in 2019, while Nauru switched to Beijing in January of this year. Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies in the region are the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Tuvalu.
(Source: Central News Agency)