Taiwan formally confirms retired US general observes Han Kuang drills with Indo-Pacific Command team

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense has for the first time formally confirmed that a retired US general serves as a senior observer during the annual Han Kuang exercise, supported by an observer team of military and civilian specialists drawn together by US Indo-Pacific Command, the Liberty Times and Storm Media reported on 9 October.

The confirmation came in a written report the ministry gave the Legislative Yuan to release frozen funds for a General Staff foreign military sales case covering annual senior observer assessments and bilateral exchanges. Under the arrangement, the two sides agree on items for annual preparatory meetings, where they discuss what the Han Kuang evaluation needs and how the observation will be carried out.

During the exercise the retired general acts as senior observer, and the team offers recommendations for improving the armed forces' joint operations based on training objectives and what it sees. Those recommendations go into the Han Kuang summary report, and the conclusions serve as a reference for force building and combat readiness, according to the report.

Storm Media said the 2026 defence budget documents list 82.44 million New Taiwan dollars for the case across 2026 and 2027, including 41.22 million this year. Lawmakers froze 1 million of that, saying the military had not explained how the programme is run, the rank of those sent or the expected results, and required a written report before the money could be spent. The ministry said costs follow the US Defense Department's Joint Travel Regulations and US government overseas per diem rates.

From no comment to confirmation

The ministry had long declined to discuss the observers. During the Han Kuang 41 computer-assisted wargame last year, Taiwanese media reported that retired four-star US Army general Robert B. Abrams, a former commander of US forces in South Korea, served as senior observer and, for the first time, as an adviser to Chief of the General Staff Adm. Mei Chia-shu. At the time the ministry said exchanges with the United States followed annual plans and that it did not comment on individual cases.

When asked about the issue in August, Defence Minister Wellington Koo said only that military ties with the United States were growing closer and that Taiwan hoped to draw on US combat-oriented experience to raise the capability of its units. The Liberty Times described the new report as the first time the ministry had stated the rank and scale of the US presence at the exercise.

Military exchanges between Taipei and Washington have become increasingly visible in recent years, with American instructors appearing at a range of Taiwanese training events, Storm Media noted. The report does not name the observer for this year's exercise or give the size of the Indo-Pacific Command team.