To test countermeasures against an enemy’s rapid assault landing, the Han Kuang exercises included a drill mobilizing various armored and mechanized infantry battalions. Based on the overall scenario and the additional conditions, the drill was conducted in the “first combat zone,” Penghu County, where the troops participated in live-fire exercises to counterattack an invading force.
However, certain people and news media have criticized the exercise, parrotting China’s Taiwan Affairs Office and falling into the trap of Chinese cognitive warfare.
By belittling the exercises and distorting its strategic point, the agency’s aims to make Taiwanese lose faith in their military. That speaks volumes about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) concern about Taiwan’s asymmetrical defense tactics.
Some Taiwanese celebrities and news media are willing to allow themselves to become mouthpieces for CCP cognitive warfare.
They questioned the anti-landing operation in Penghu, saying that the relocation of the main battlefield to the outlying island was a tactical flaw and that it showed that the military does not have the ability to defend Taiwan proper. Such negative remarks are misleading and cause anxiety among Taiwanese.
The armed forces no longer view beachhead interception as the only tactic. They use diverse tactics, such as anti-ship missiles, landmine deployment, battlefield situational awareness and mobile strikes, with multipoint denial and multiple-layer paralysis as its core concept.
Landing operations are a strategy of the “gray zone” warfare that can defeat an enemy, delay its landing and reduce its forces. How can this be simplified as Taiwan being unable to defend its territory?
Ben Tsai is an editor-in-chief.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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