The live-fire portion of the annual Han Kuang exercises is to continue as scheduled in July, but possibly on a smaller scale due to the domestic COVID-19 outbreak, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee yesterday.
Asked at the meeting whether the exercises would be postponed as the number of domestic COVID-19 infections continues to rise, Chiu responded that the live-fire exercises would not be suspended, but would likely be downsized, with the number of military personnel participating in the drills to be reduced.
The 38th Han Kuang military exercises include simulated tabletop war games and live-fire drills. The tabletop exercise concluded on Friday last week, while the live-fire component is scheduled for July 25 to 29.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The tabletop exercise simulated the military’s tactics against possible Chinese invasion scenarios drawn from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Ministry of National Defense said.
The live-fire component is to be based on the outcome of the tabletop simulation.
Citing a report by Reuters, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) told the meeting that Washington plans to provide Ukraine with ground-launched Harpoon anti-ship missiles to bolster its war effort, and asked whether those arms transfers could delay the delivery of such weapons to Taiwan, which has placed a NT$86.6 billion (US$2.94 billion) order for 400 of the missiles.
Chiu said that the ministry would urge Washington to ship the missiles to Taiwan according to the schedule and quantity stipulated in the contract.
“The ministry does not relent in matters concerning the lawful and contractual interests of our nation, which is not subject to change even by contingency,” he said.
Meanwhile, Chiu and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Kuei-min (李貴敏) had a table-slamming argument over allegations that military service members were being used as cheap labor in COVID-19 pandemic-related tasks.
After being asked a series of questions about the expenses associated with various types of pandemic work, Chiu replied that he is “not well informed about money or payment rates.”
“If you are not informed, maybe you should listen,” Lee said, before the two exchanged increasingly heated words.
“You are ridiculous,” Lee said.
“No, you are ridiculous,” Chiu responded.
DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), who chaired the meeting, rose from his seat multiple times before order was restored.
The hearing resumed after the two apologized to Lo for disrupting legislative business.
The exchange came three weeks after Chiu clashed with DPP Legislator Mark Ho (何志偉) regarding the army’s treatment of reservists who were infected with COVID-19 when taking their refresher training.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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