President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is tomorrow to board a naval vessel to observe a joint exercise that is part of the annual five-day live-fire phase of the Han Kuang military exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
The drill is expected to feature more than 20 military vessels and several air force fighter jets off the coast near Yilan County’s Suao (蘇澳) naval base, and would test the armed forces’ joint defense capabilities against a Chinese invasion from the sea, the ministry said.
It would be the first time that Tsai inspects a Han Kuang drill from a warship since taking office in May 2016.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
In 2018, she boarded a warship to watch a separate offshore combat readiness exercise from the Kidd-class destroyer Keelung at the Suao naval base.
Tomorrow’s drill would be part of the live-fire component of this year’s annual Han Kuang military exercises, Taiwan’s largest war games involving all military branches. The 38th edition of the exercises aims to test Taiwan’s combat readiness in the event of a Chinese invasion. They start today and run through Friday.
The exercises would officially begin after the Joint Operations Command Center, better known as the Hengshan Command Center, announces the initiation of the live-fire drills early today, the ministry said.
Today’s drills would be focused on testing the military’s preservation and maintenance of combat capabilities in the event of a full-scale Chinese invasion, the ministry said.
As part of the drills, air force fighter jets deployed in the west of Taiwan’s main island would be dispatched to Hualien Air Force Base, it said.
Military C-130 transport aircraft would also be used to take military personnel responsible for fighter jet maintenance, together with equipment and supplies, to designated locations in eastern Taiwan early in the day, it said.
Another highlight of this year’s Han Kuang exercises is that reservists who have undergone longer and more intense training would participate in the drill for the first time, the ministry said.
A new reservist training program was launched in March to improve the combat readiness of Taiwan’s reserve forces.
Under the new program, reservists undergo two weeks of training rather than the previous five to seven days. During the two weeks, reservists do not have any days off and spend more time on combat training, the ministry said.
The new reservist training program was devised after the military in 2020 said that it wanted to ensure that Taiwan’s reserve force can more reliably back up regular forces amid an increase in Chinese military maneuvers around Taiwan.
As done previously, this year’s Han Kuang exercises are being held in two phases: war games and live-fire drills.
The war games were conducted from May 16 to 20.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.