2024-04-13 17:33:12
The Taiwan Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that Taiwan will hold annual war games this year in areas at sea to simulate breaking a siege and a scenario that assumes that China “suddenly turned one of its periodic exercises around the island into an actual attack,” and the exercises will include “lessons learned from the Gaza war.”
China, which considers democratically governed Taiwan part of its territory, has been conducting periodic maneuvers around the island for four years to pressure Taipei to accept Beijing’s claims to sovereignty over it, despite Taiwan’s strong objections.
The ministry stated that Taiwan begins its main annual training exercise (Han Kuang) this month with preparatory activities that have been extended from the usual five days to eight days in light of the number of scenarios it includes, to be followed by actual combat training in July.
Tung Chih-shing, head of the ministry’s Joint Combat Planning Department, told a press briefing that the exercises will be on how to quickly respond to a Chinese drill that suddenly turns into an attack, something military planning experts have begun to worry about given its patrol.
Tong added that the focus will also be on how the different branches of the armed forces coordinate their response to a Chinese siege.
“Lessons learned from the Gaza war”
During a major round of war games around Taiwan in April last year, China conducted precise strikes and besieged the island.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine two years ago, Taiwan has been looking to extract lessons learned and incorporate them into its own training, particularly how smaller Ukrainian forces can fend off the larger Russian army.
Tong said this year’s exercises will include this again, in addition to lessons learned from the Gaza war.
China: We will not give up the option of force
Last January, China said that its position that it would not give up the option of “using force” to subject Taiwan to its control, targets foreign interference and a small number of what it described as “separatists” on the island, while it expressed its willingness to expand horizons for “peaceful unity.” .
In January, the Taiwanese elected Lai Ching-ti of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party as the country’s new president, and China considers him a “dangerous separatist.”
The official spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office, Chen Binhua, said during a press conference in Beijing that the result of the elections held in Taiwan does not change the fact that the island is Chinese territory, and that it will eventually become “unified.”
Chen added: “Our failure to abandon the use of force is not at all aimed at our citizens in Taiwan. “We target interference from external forces, the small number of separatists for Taiwan independence and their separatist activities.”
He pointed out that “mainstream public opinion in Taiwan wants peace, not war, exchanges, not distance, and the overthrow of the Democratic Progressive Party.”
He continued: “If the Democratic Progressive Party does not desist, and moves further and further away from the evil path of seeking (independence) provocations, this will only push Taiwan into a dangerous situation, and will cause serious harm to it.”
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2024-04-13 17:33:12