Japan and the US are conducting joint military exercises with China as a hypothetical enemy for the first time, Japanese media on Sunday cited Tokyo officials as saying.
The Japan Self-Defense Forces and the US military set a possible Taiwan contingency as the main scenario for their highest-level military exercise Keen Edge, which began on Thursday last week and is scheduled to end on Thursday, Kyodo News reported.
Keen Edge is a biennial command post training drill in which Japanese and US military employ computer simulations to practice responses in the event of a crisis or contingency, the US Indo-Pacific Command said.
Photo: AFP
Japanese General Yoshihide Yoshida, the head of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, told a news conference on Jan. 25 that Japan and the US “did not envision a particular country or region” for the exercise, the Japan Times reported.
However, Kyodo News cited “multiple government officials” as saying that China was the hypothetical enemy.
Compared with past exercises, which used tentative names for hypothetical enemies, the current exercise is conducted under a much more concrete assumption, it said.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense is believed to have classified the scenario as a specially designated secret protected by Japan’s State Secrecy Law, it said.
Amid growing concerns that China would invade Taiwan within the next few years, naming a hypothetical enemy indicated a strong sense of urgency shared by Japan and the US, it said.
In previous exercises, Japan and the US used maps that slightly differed from the topography of actual countries to “avoid a backlash in the event the plans were leaked,” but switched to unaltered maps in the current exercise, the Japan Times reported.
Japan and the US have drawn up several joint operation plans in preparation for possible contingencies, with a draft envisioning a Taiwan contingency being completed at the end of last year, Kyodo News said.
The two sides are said to finalize the drafted plan by the end of this year based on the results of the current exercise, it said.
Troops are expected to carry out the plan during the field training exercise Keen Sword next year to verify its efficacy, it said.
SECURITY: As China is ‘reshaping’ Hong Kong’s population, Taiwan must raise the eligibility threshold for applications from Hong Kongers, Chiu Chui-cheng said When Hong Kong and Macau citizens apply for residency in Taiwan, it would be under a new category that includes a “national security observation period,” Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. President William Lai (賴清德) on March 13 announced 17 strategies to counter China’s aggression toward Taiwan, including incorporating national security considerations into the review process for residency applications from Hong Kong and Macau citizens. The situation in Hong Kong is constantly changing, Chiu said to media yesterday on the sidelines of the Taipei Technology Run hosted by the Taipei Neihu Technology Park Development Association. With
A US Marine Corps regiment equipped with Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) is set to participate in the upcoming Balikatan 25 exercise in the Luzon Strait, marking the system’s first-ever deployment in the Philippines. US and Philippine officials have separately confirmed that the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) — the mobile launch platform for the Naval Strike Missile — would take part in the joint exercise. The missiles are being deployed to “a strategic first island chain chokepoint” in the waters between Taiwan proper and the Philippines, US-based Naval News reported. “The Luzon Strait and Bashi Channel represent a critical access
‘FORM OF PROTEST’: The German Institute Taipei said it was ‘shocked’ to see Nazi symbolism used in connection with political aims as it condemned the incident Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 yesterday amid an outcry over a Nazi armband he wore to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case on Tuesday night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and apparently covering the book with a coat. This is a serious international scandal and Chinese
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE TRAINING: The ministry said 87.5 percent of the apprehended Chinese agents were reported by service members they tried to lure into becoming spies Taiwanese organized crime, illegal money lenders, temples and civic groups are complicit in Beijing’s infiltration of the armed forces, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in a report yesterday. Retired service members who had been turned to Beijing’s cause mainly relied on those channels to infiltrate the Taiwanese military, according to the report to be submitted to lawmakers ahead of tomorrow’s hearing on Chinese espionage in the military. Chinese intelligence typically used blackmail, Internet-based communications, bribery or debts to loan sharks to leverage active service personnel to do its bidding, it said. China’s main goals are to collect intelligence, and develop a
RSS