So-called 'English teachers' at Taiwan's big war games are an open secret — US military help is getting harder to hide

Soldiers repositioning after a drill simulating contamination during a military exercise in Hualien, Taiwan.

An Rong Xu/Bloomberg via Getty Images Taiwan conducts a major islandwide military exercise every year to simulate a Chinese invasion.

Local media estimated that over 100 US military advisors and trainers attended this year's exercises.

It's an open secret in Taiwan that the US is helping to advise its troops and observe their tactics.

TAIPEI — There's a term in Taiwan for the hardened, military-aged Americans who mysteriously pop up at the island's annual simulation of a Chinese invasion.

"English teachers." Vaguely employed and surprisingly fit, they are often spotted in small groups, chatting with local soldiers, walking double-time on the streets, and giving death stares to any camera-toting reporters as the Taiwanese prepare and execute their live drills.

Local media estimated that over 100 of these foreigners — rumored to be unofficial US military advisors and observers — were present at this year's Han Kuang exercise , which featured 10 intense days of drills across Taiwan.

Covert collaboration The US sells weaponry to Taiwan, but overt military ties with the island are politically sensitive, and the American military presence there is covert.

A 2021 report by The Wall Street Journal found that small teams of US special operations forces, a few dozen strong, had spent at least a year training Taiwanese troops on the island.

In the so-called "English teachers," a similar kind of quiet, persistent US military presence was noticeable at this year's Han Kuang.

"A lot more 'American English teachers' will be showing up where they need to be," its defense minister, Koo Li-hsiung, said to reporters before the exercise began.

"But you won't be able to spot them everywhere they operate." US-Taiwanese military collaboration "is far closer than you might imagine," he added.

I ran into a group that fit the "English teacher" bill one late Friday night.

Typhoon Dolphin was dumping rain on central Taipei that evening, and I'd shown up at the wrong subway station exit for a military police exercise.