This year’s Han Kuang exercise concluded today with the final set of urban resilience drills taking place in eastern Taiwan and the outlying islands.
Continuing the exercise’s third stage, personnel executed defense-in-depth tactics and simulated urban combat scenarios, while garrison troops conducted live-fire exercises near the Taipei MRT Red line.
The ten days of the drills were split into three stages — simulating a grey-zone conflict, which expanded into a full-scale attempt to invade the country, with troops repelling beach landings, building blockades, displaying new weaponry and doing other tasks.
Photo courtesy of Military News Agency
This year’s drills saw the largest-ever mobilization of reservists to participate in the exercises with 22,000 soldiers, including mobilizing the entire 206th Infantry Brigade.
The 206th Infantry Brigade regained full combat effectiveness and were immediately put into defensive operations, the Military News Agency said today.
This confirmed the effectiveness of the brigade’s training and mobilization capabilities, it added.
This morning at 10am, Hualien County, Taitung County and the outlying Penghu, Kinmen and Lienchiang counties all held their urban resilience drill.
In Lienchiang, the ROC Army Matsu Defense Command cooperated with the county government to hold the drill and evacuate civilians to shelters.
In Hualien, police cleared the roads and directed people to shelters, while at Jian Township’s (吉安) train station, a simulation was held of a missile strike resulting in a fire which required emergency services.
In Penghu, nearly 300 tourists took shelter in the Pier 3 shopping mall and the fire department launched fire-fighting robots to a Magong power plant for disaster relief efforts.
Separately, the Ministry of National Defense announced today that from 6am yesterday to 6am today, 11 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft were detected around Taiwan, with seven crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line.
Eleven Chinese vessels were also spotted in the strait.
The ministry said that the armed forces were continuing to monitor the situation and remain ready to respond appropriately.
Additional reporting by Yu Chao-fu, Hua Meng-ching and Fang Wei-li
“China is preparing to invade Taiwan,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an exclusive interview with British media channel Sky News for a special report titled, “Is Taiwan ready for a Chinese invasion?” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today in a statement. The 25-minute-long special report by Helen Ann-Smith released yesterday saw Sky News travel to Penghu, Taoyuan and Taipei to discuss the possibility of a Chinese invasion and how Taiwan is preparing for an attack. The film observed emergency response drills, interviewed baseball fans at the Taipei Dome on their views of US President
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a "tsunami watch" alert after a magnitude 8.7 earthquake struck off the Kamchatka Peninsula in northeastern Russia earlier in the morning. The quake struck off the east coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula at 7:25am (Taiwan time) at a depth of about 19km, the CWA said, citing figures from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The CWA's Seismological Center said preliminary assessments indicate that a tsunami could reach Taiwan's coastal areas by 1:18pm today. The CWA urged residents along the coast to stay alert and take necessary precautions as waves as high as 1m could hit the southeastern
ECONOMIC BENEFITS: The imports from Belize would replace those from Honduras, whose shrimp exports have dropped 67 percent since cutting ties in 2023 Maintaining ties with Taiwan has economic benefits, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials said yesterday, citing the approval of frozen whiteleg shrimp imports from Belize by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an example. The FDA on Wednesday approved the tariff-free imports from Belize after the whiteleg shrimp passed the Systematic Inspection of Imported Food, which would continue to boost mutual trade, the ministry said. Taiwan’s annual consumption of whiteleg shrimps stands at 30,000 tonnes, far exceeding domestic production, the ministry said. Taiwan used to fill the gap by importing shrimps from Honduras, but purchases slumped after Tegucigalpa severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan
The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a southwestern extension of the Sanying MRT Line from New Taipei to Bade District (八德) in Taoyuan, with a goal of starting construction by late 2026. The 4.03-kilometer extension, featuring three new stations, will run from the current terminus at Yingtao Fude Station (LB12) in New Taipei City to Dannan Station (LB14), where it will connect with Taoyuan’s Green Line, New Taipei City Metro Corp said in a statement. This extension will follow the completion of core Sanying Line, a 14.29-kilometer medium-capacity system linking Tucheng (土城), Sansia (三峽)
RSS