The military invited President Chen Shui-bian (
The exercise, which is apart of the Hankuang No. 16 exercise, took place at the military's top-security strategic command in Taipei's suburban Taichih district.
It was the first time the president and his Cabinet participated in the armed forces' most important annual military exercise, which has been held since the early 1980s.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
It was also Chen's first visit to the military's "Hengshan" strategic command center as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Premier Tang Fei (唐飛) led Cabinet members on their first experience inside the command center, which is located within a hollowed-out hill separating Taipei's Taichih and Shihlin districts.
Yesterday's session of the Hankuang No. 16 exercise simulated inter-departmental joint operations between the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Transportation and Communications, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, the Mainland Affairs Council, the Central Bank of China and the Coast Guard.
"It is the first time all governmental departments related to the country's national security system have been mobilized together to practice wartime operations," said a defense official, who declined to be identified.
"Similar tests were first conducted during last year's Hankuang exercise, but without the participation of the heads of the relevant departments," the official said.
"This year, we want to test whether all the departments involved could work well enough together to maintain government operations, if and when the country is under Chinese attack," the official added.
In addition to the high-profile cross-departmental rehearsal, another important event on the schedule of Hankuang No. 16 exercise, which quietly kicked off in mid-August, is the concentration of active-duty and reserve troops in Hsinchu between Sept. 12 to Sept. 16.
"An effective recall of reserve troops is another major theme of this year's Hankuang exercise. This year we combined the Tunghsing No. 12 reservist's recall drill with the Hankuang exercise to see if the reserve troops could assemble as required at the right time and in the right place," the defense ministry official said.
"In addition to the reserve troops, we will gather at the same time and place two army brigades of troops from Hsinchu and Taipei's Linkou. We will not, however, mobilize the two brigades for any simulated engagement against each other," he said.
"At that point, there will be a review of troops by the president."
Original plans for a large-scale maneuver of troops and live-fire tests of weapons have been scaled back dramatically so as not to exacerbate sensitive cross-straight tensions.
The last time a Hankuang exercise contained live-fire drills and a real-live deployment of troops was in 1997.
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