President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday made his first inspection of the annual Han Kuang exercises as the nation’s commander-in-chief.
Arriving at Hualien Air Base on a presidential aircraft at about 10:30am, Lai, who was inaugurated in May, changed from a suit into an army uniform before beginning his inspection.
Accompanied by Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) and senior military officials, Lai stopped at an area of the base where a group of medics were simulating treating patients in a field hospital.
Photo: CNA
The drill observed by the president, a former physician, was meant to test medics’ familiarity with so-called “Tactical Combat Casualty Care,” a set of guidelines for trauma life support in prehospital combat medicine published by the US Defense Health Agency.
Lai then handed out red envelopes to participating troops before leaving without making a public address.
“All brothers and sisters in the military are important combat forces in safeguarding national security,” Lai said in Hualien, according to a statement released by the Presidential Office.
Photo: Cheng I-hwa, Bloomberg
“I hope that we can continue to improve our combat capabilities, not only to reassure the public, but also to let the world see our determination to protect the nation,” he said.
Lai, a staunch defender of Taiwan’s democracy, is regarded as a “dangerous separatist” by China. Three days after he was sworn into office, China launched war games simulating an encirclement of Taiwan as a “punishment” for his inauguration speech, which Beijing said was a “confession of Taiwanese independence.”
Earlier yesterday, troops from the Hualien Air Base-based 5th Tactical Mixed Wing conducted a round of exercises simulating turning the base’s taxiway into an emergency runway within 30 minutes.
The drill simulated a scenario where enemy missiles had rendered the base’s main runway unusable.
Troops used a bird dispersal vehicle and a separate vehicle to detect foreign objects near the runway to ensure arriving aircraft would not be damaged by bird strikes or foreign objects.
They also installed signs along the emergency runway at 1,000 feet (305m) intervals to show pilots the distance remaining to the end of the runway.
An arresting gear system was used to bring jets landing on the temporary runway to a halt.
Land-based arresting gear systems are usually used for landing aircraft on short or temporary runways, and for emergencies involving brake failure or steering problems, or when sections of a runway are out of commission.
However, due to the incoming Typhoon Gaemi, the military canceled a round of fighter jet emergency landing and refueling drills on the emergency runway yesterday.
Military spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) told reporters that the ongoing live-fire component of the Han Kuang series of exercises had been adjusted for safety reasons.
“The impact from the typhoon at present on the east coast is rather obvious,” Sun said. “So we will adjust some of the air and naval elements given the situation.”
Sun did not disclose if more scheduled drills would be canceled due to the typhoon.
The 40th edition of the annual event officially began at 6am on Monday after the Ministry of National Defense’s Joint Operations Command Center announced the beginning of the five-day around-the-clock drills.
The annual Han Kuang exercises, which have served as Taiwan’s major war games since 1984, consist of live-fire drills and computerized war games, and seek to test Taiwan’s combat readiness in the face of a possible Chinese invasion.
This year’s tabletop exercises were staged in April.
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