The Presidential Office yesterday conducted its first-ever tabletop exercises simulating a military escalation with China, several defense officials briefed on the matter said.
The Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee, which was established by President William Lai (賴清德) in June, held its second meeting yesterday, inviting 19 ministries and 16 local bureaus to participate.
They verified central and local emergency response capabilities and prepared for field exercises scheduled for March.
Photo courtesy of the Presidential Office
Dozens of central and local government agencies, as well as civil groups, participated in the three hours of exercises, the sources told Reuters.
They requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The exercises were led by Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) in the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, the sources said.
They ran from 9am to noon, simulating China taking advantage of geopolitical instability this year to launch an attack on Taiwan, the sources said.
The exercises simulated two situations, one featuring China’s “high intensity gray zone” warfare, as well as one in which Taiwan is “on the verge of conflict” to test response readiness by government offices and civil society, a security official familiar with the matter said.
In both situations, there were 11 different scenarios simulated for participants to respond to, they said.
Participants considered situations including cognitive warfare response, deployments of emergency medical services, critical infrastructure maintenance and securing important supplies in the hopes of testing the government’s ability to respond in a crisis, and coordinate between central and local agencies, the defense officials said.
In addition to encouraging an integrated government response at the local and central levels, the inclusion of local agencies boosts society’s self-resilience and stability in times of crisis, limiting changes to people’s daily lives, they said.
The committee’s civilian members would also form an observation group to determine response capabilities and level of preparedness, they added.
Following the tabletop exercises, the committee held a second meeting at 4pm to discuss the results and provide suggestions, with NSC Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) delivering reports, the sources said.
Next year, the committee is to hold small-scale exercises in March, followed by more in June prior to the annual Han Kuang military exercises.
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