The commencement yesterday of the live-fire component of the annual Han Kuang military exercises, Taiwan’s major war games involving all military branches, focused on testing the military’s preservation and maintenance of combat capabilities in the event of a full-scale Chinese invasion.
The 39th edition of the annual event officially began at 6am after the Ministry of National Defense’s Joint Operations Command Center, also known as the Hengshan Command Center, announced the initiation of the five-day live-fire drills to test the military’s capability to fend off a Chinese invasion.
As part of the drills, air force fighter jets that were originally deployed in the western part of Taiwan were dispatched to Hualien Air Base in the east early yesterday in a simulation of an invasion, the ministry said.
Photo: Yu Tai-lang, Taipei Times
This was done to make sure the main backbones of the nation’s fighter jets on the west side of Taiwan that is closer to the Chinese mainland would be able to preserve their combat readiness on the eastern part of the nation, it said.
All of the nation’s major naval vessels left their home ports early yesterday and sailed to designated locations off the coast in preparation for confronting enemy forces and to deploy naval mines to slow down an enemy invasion, the ministry said.
Reservists were simultaneously called up by the military and asked to report to designated locations as a preventive measure in anticipation of an enemy invasion, it added.
Photo: CNA
The annual exercises, which have served as Taiwan’s major war games since 1984, consist of live-fire drills and computerized war games, and are meant to test the nation’s combat readiness in the face of a possible Chinese invasion.
This year’s tabletop exercises were staged in May.
The five-day live-fire exercises are to run until Friday.
With Typhoon Doksuri approaching, the military yesterday announced that it had canceled an emergency takeoff and landing drill at the civilian Taitung Fengnian Airport planned for today.
The planned drill at Fengnian, the first of its kind since the airport opened in 1981, would have involved F-16 jets and C-130H Hercules transport aircraft, the ministry said.
The ministry has scheduled an anti-takeover drill for tomorrow at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the country’s primary international gateway.
Should the drill in Taoyuan go ahead as planned, it would be the first time such an exercise would have been held at the nation’s busiest civilian airport.
Military spokesman Major General Sun Li-fang (孫立方) hinted that the ministry could cancel other parts of the Han Kuang exercises due to Typhoon Doksuri, with Taiwan expected to feel its impact tomorrow and on Thursday, the Central Weather Bureau said.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’