(Adnkronos) – Taiwan today kicks off its annual military exercises. Named ‘Han Kuang’, the exercises, which aim to prepare the island for a possible invasion by China, will take place until August 14 and include realistic combat scenarios to train troops and reservists to react to a potential attack on the island. One of the main objectives of this year’s training is to decentralize command and control, allowing commanders and officers on the battlefield to make operational decisions without having to wait for orders from higher levels. Civilians will also be involved in the exercises: planned measures include a temporary slowdown of the mobile internet network and air raid simulations. Dozens of reservists today deployed along a beach overlooking the Taiwan Strait, firing Taiwanese-made assault rifles at pre-arranged targets. In the courtyard of a high school in Taipei, other reservists trained in loading mortars and using M4 carbines. In southern Taiwan, Navy units and a submarine were deployed, while tanks and other armored vehicles carried out pre-dawn maneuvers in the streets of Taichung city, in the center of the island.
Taiwan will also deploy Navy and Coast Guard ships to escort supplies during a simulated Chinese naval blockade in the waters east of the island. The island will also assess “the ability of mobilized establishments to sustain wartime production” and test the “wartime relocation” of military and civilian facilities. “Training can always be improved,” emphasized Defense Minister Wellington Koo. “We will therefore continue to train with commitment and intensity, to be fully prepared in peacetime and capable of carrying out our missions in wartime.”
China considers Taiwan one of its provinces and has threatened to use force to annex the island, inhabited by over 23 million people. Beijing deploys ships, fighter jets, and Coast Guard units almost daily around Taiwan, asserting its sovereignty over the island, a claim rejected by Taipei. In recent months, the Chinese Coast Guard has also intensified so-called “gray zone tactics,” hostile actions that do not formally constitute an act of war, in the waters around Taiwan and its outlying islands. “As the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party continues to expand, red terror also spreads throughout the world,” said Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te during a security forum on the eve of the exercises. “We will continue to strengthen our national defense and build a defense and resilience system that involves the entire society,” he added.
Under pressure from the United States, which is asking the island to invest more in its security, Taiwan has increased defense spending and acquired more compact and manageable weaponry, including drones, to enable its armed forces to conduct asymmetric warfare against China. President Lai’s government has pledged to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2030.
However, the executive is at odds with opposition parties, which control Parliament, over the amount of resources to be allocated to strengthening the island’s defensive capabilities.
In May, the two main opposition parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), approved an extraordinary defense budget of 25 billion dollars, reducing the amount requested by President Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) by about a third.
