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on July 18, 2019 Tom Cruise Makes Surprise Appearance At Comic-Con with first ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Trailer. In the trailer for “Top Gun: Maverick,” Tom Cruise’s character can be seen wearing his signature leather jacket, but something isn’t the same anymore.

Related Article: Here’s everything we have noticed in Latest Trailer of “Top Gun: Maverick” An eagle-eyed Twitter user pointed out that Maverick, whose entire character and name suggest a fierce independence, now wears a jacket that appears changed to appease China, the US’s current chief military adversary. Maverick’s old jacket had a large patch that read “Far East Cruise 63-4, USS Galveston,” commemorating a real-life US battleship’s tour of Japan, Taiwan, and the Western Pacific. Fittingly, the patch displayed the US, UN, Japanese, and Taiwanese flags. In the new movie, the patch now has the US and UN flags, but not the Japanese or Taiwanese flags, and makes no mention of the Galveston.

Relations between Japan and China have long been fraught, with tensions rising in recent years over Beijing’s South China Sea development, where it has reclaimed reefs and islands and built runways, hangars and missile systems.

And China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunified, despite the two sides being ruled separately since the end of the civil war in 1949.

However, a former navy pilot has responded to the online controversy, saying there is “no meaning” to the flag change.

In a tweet responding to MacKinnon’s original post, Ward Carroll said: “The patch assortment on flight suits and jackets in the Top Gun franchise has always been a running joke (among running jokes) for those in the #NavyAir business. They are random in where they are placed and commands they represent. Seek no meaning because there is none.”

The patch assortment on flight suits and jackets in the Top Gun franchise has always been a running joke (among running jokes) for those in the #NavyAir business. They are random in where they are placed and commands they represent. Seek no meaning because there is none. — Ward Carroll (@wardcarroll) July 19, 2019

Top Gun: Maverick sees Cruise reprise his famous role of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, with his character now a flight instructor at the Top Gun school.

It is due for release in June 2020.