In short:
Taiwan has started its annual war games which this year will seek to closely mimic actual combat.
Soldiers will train around-the-clock, with severed command ties, and in challenging terrains across the island to improve the military’s readiness.
The war games come as the first under President Lai Ching-Te, who has drawn the ire of China over his apparent “separatist” stance.
Taiwan has launched its annual Han Kuang war games, which this year aim to be as close as possible to actual combat with no script during simulations of how to repel a Chinese attack.
The military exercise, which has been held since 1984, kicked off with anti-landing drills on a strategic river on Monday, local time, and will run for five days in locations across the island.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has this year cancelled elements that were mostly for show, like scripted firepower displays, and limited the involvement of command lines to improve soldiers’ combat readiness.
The drills will include intensified night-time exercises for the first time, operations with loss of contact and updated military rules of engagement.
Training scenarios will also be unscripted, aiming to brace soldiers against a real-life offensive in war where there is no information on enemy movements.
Kicking off the first day of exercises in Tamsui, at the mouth of a major river leading to Taipei, soldiers practised laying mines and nets to stymie the landing of enemy forces, part of a series of exercises designed to prevent the capital being seized.
“We are trying our best to slow them down as much as possible,” military officer Chang Chih-pin said, referring to a scenario where the enemy was trying to make landfall by sending rubber boats into the Tamsui River.
“The slower they move, the better for us,” he added.
In Taoyuan, which neighbours the capital and is home to Taiwan’s main international airport, reservists gathered to get their orders as they would during a war, and civilian vans were pressed into service to carry supplies.
Taiwan’s defence ministry also published video of air force fighter jets at the Hualien air base on the island’s east coast, which has hangars cut out of the side of a mountain to protect aircraft from aerial attack.
Live fire drills will only take place on Taiwan’s outlying islands, including Kinmen and Matsu, which sit nestled next to the Chinese coast and were the scene of on-off clashes during the height of the Cold War.
The five-day war games will be happening in conjunction with the Wan’an civil defence drills, where the streets of major cities are evacuated for half an hour during a simulated Chinese missile attack, and test warning alarms will sound on mobile phones.
The drill scenarios this week include setting up contingency command lines after existing hubs are destroyed and dispersing Chinese forces trying to land on Taiwan’s western coastline facing China, a defence official involved in the planning said.
Hostilities in strategic Taiwan Strait
China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its territory, has been staging regular exercises around the island for four years to pressure Taipei into accepting Beijing’s claim of sovereignty, despite Taiwan’s strong objections.
It held two days of its own war games in the Taiwan Strait shortly after President Lai Ching-te took office in May, calling it “punishment” for his inauguration speech, which Beijing denounced as being full of separatist content.
Mock strikes were conducted using fighter jets and live missiles as close as Taiwan’s outlying islands, which Taipei said reflected on Beijing’s “militaristic mentality”.
But China has also been using grey zone warfare against Taiwan, wielding irregular tactics to exhaust a foe by keeping them continually on alert without resorting to open combat.
This includes almost daily air force missions into the skies near Taiwan.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. President Lai, who says only the Taiwanese people can decide their future, has repeatedly offered talks but been rebuffed.
In August 2022, China launched live-fire military exercises around Taiwan immediately after a visit, much condemned by Beijing, by former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
That series of exercises, the scale of which was unprecedented, lasted for four days, followed by several days of additional drills.
Reuters