This month’s annual Han Kuang military exercises are to feature six types of “gray zone” tactics used by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with the aim of weakening their effectiveness, Chief of the General Staff Admiral Mei Chia-shu (梅家樹) told the military yesterday.
The 41st Han Kuang drills, scheduled from Wednesday next week through July 18, would simulate a Chinese blockade and invasion, with President William Lai (賴清德) on Tuesday saying that Taiwan is already in a “war without gun smoke.”
In a speech broadcast to officers and soldiers yesterday, Mei said that the six types of harassment are: legal warfare, cognitive warfare, attrition, coercion, containment and provocation.
Photo courtesy of Military News Agency
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to use laws to challenge the international community’s ability to intervene in the Taiwan Strait, and uses cognitive and psychological warfare to spread misinformation and weaken the armed forces’ ability to respond, he said.
However, the army would continue to train, and maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, without being provoked or contained, Mei said.
This year’s Han Kuang exercises would mobilize the 22,000 reservists, feature new weaponry and run twice as long as previous iterations, the Ministry of National Defense said earlier this week.
The exercises would be divided into three parts: Simulating a PLA gray zone incursion that escalates into an invasion, practicing coastal combat and repelling an amphibious landing by the PLA, the ministry said.
The drills would include a live-fire portion, and feature a joint command structure and civil-military cooperation, it said.
They would also be combined with the Wanan air defense and Minan disaster prevention exercises to test air-raid, evacuation and urban resilience measures, the ministry said.
Taiwan’s increased focus on gray zone threats and its lengthening of the Han Kuang drills’ live-fire portion to 10 days have been praised by two US defense experts.
Ely Ratner, former US assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, wrote in an e-mail yesterday that the changes “reflect an important ongoing evolution in the strengthening of Taiwan’s defenses and resilience.”
“Taiwan is on the right track to contribute to deterrence,” Ratner said, adding that it should push forward with greater urgency.
John Dotson, director of the Washington-based Global Taiwan Institute, wrote in an e-mail that this year’s exercises would be much more meaningful.
They would be “less scripted,” allowing for “a bit more spontaneity, and the confusion that comes with actual warfare,” Dotson said.
In related news, 41 PLA aircraft and nine naval vessels were detected around Taiwan between 6am on Wednesday and 6am yesterday, the ministry said yesterday.
Thirty of the aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, it said.
Flight path charts from the ministry showed PLA aircraft routes that circled Taiwan.
The armed forces “monitored the situation and employed [patrol] aircraft, navy vessels and coastal missile systems in response to the detected activities,” the ministry said.
The Chinese military has built landing bridge ships designed to expand its amphibious options for a potential assault on Taiwan, but their combat effectiveness is limited due to their high vulnerability, a defense expert said in an analysis published on Monday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the deployment of such vessels as part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s East Sea Fleet signals a strong focus on Taiwan. However, the ships are highly vulnerable to precision strikes, which means they could be destroyed before they achieve their intended
GLOBAL: Although Matsu has limited capacity for large numbers of domestic tourists, it would be a great high-end destination for international travelers, an official said Lienchiang County’s (Matsu) unique landscape and Cold War history give it great potential to be marketed as a destination for international travelers, Tourism Administration Director General Chen Yu-hsiu (陳玉秀) said at the weekend. Tourism officials traveled to the outlying island for the Matsu Biennial, an art festival that started on Friday to celebrate Matsu’s culture, history and landscape. Travelers to Matsu, which lies about 190km northwest of Taipei, must fly or take the state-run New Taima passenger ship. However, flights are often canceled during fog season from April to June. Chen spoke about her vision to promote Matsu as a tourist attraction in
PAWSITIVE IMPACT: A shop owner said that while he adopted cats to take care of rodents, they have also attracted younger visitors who also buy his dried goods In Taipei’s Dadaocheng (大稻埕), cats lounging in shops along Dihua Street do more than nap amid the scent of dried seafood. Many have become beloved fixtures who double as photography models, attracting visitors and helping boost sales in one of the capital’s most historic quarters. A recent photo contest featuring more than a dozen shop cats drew more than 2,200 submissions, turning everyday cat-spotting into a friendly competition that attracted amateur and professional photographers. “It’s rare to see cats standing, so when it suddenly did, it felt like a lucky cat,” said Sabrina Hsu (徐淳蔚), who won the NT$10,000 top prize in
OIL RIGS: China is using ‘strategic ambiguity within a focused warfare strategy’ to normalize encroachments and force acceptance of new norms, a lawmaker said The government must boost capacity for ships to patrol islands under its control in the South China Sea and join with friendly nations to file a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice in response to China’s oil rig activity near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島), a lawmaker and security experts said on Thursday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) said that reports of Chinese oil rigs near Pratas Island show that Beijing has expanded construction efforts in the South China Sea. Previous activity has resulted in disputes with Vietnam and the Philippines, and now Beijing has taken up “gray zone”
RSS