RETHINKING WAR: Many people believe a first strike would involve missiles, but China would more likely use maritime militia ships and drones, a legislator said
Staff writer, with CNA
The Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military drills, began yesterday, with experts saying that the extended 14 days of war games were in response to China’s increasing “gray zone” activities and its potential to carry out a full-scale invasion of Taiwan.
This year’s exercises started with around-the-clock computer-aided war games, using the US-built Joint Theater Level Simulation platform.
The live-fire component of the exercises is to be held from July 9 to 18.
Soldiers participate in the Han Kuang exercises at the mouth of the Tamsui River in New Taipei City on July 22 last year.
Photo: CNA
The drills are to create scenarios in which Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military exercises escalate into an attack on Taiwan, said Major General Tung Chi-hsing (董冀星), director of the Ministry of National Defense’s joint operations planning division.
The Han Kuang exercises would also simulate PLA “gray zone” activities, which are provocative or aggressive actions that fall just short of an open conflict, Tung told a news conference on Wednesday.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) on Friday said that the public used to think that a first strike by China would likely come in the form of a missile attack.
However, it is more realistic to think that a first strike would involve maritime militia vessels, sand dredgers and drones, which are commonly used in “gray zone” operations, he said.
Wang, a member of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, said the military has to consider how to deal with situations that go beyond traditional force-on-force confrontations.
These include how to respond to “gray zone” activities within the bounds of international law, while preventing Chinese military drills from escalating into a full-scale invasion, he said.
Such complex scenarios require detailed planning and simulation, making the war games more time-consuming, he said.
Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), director of the Division of Defense Strategy and Resources at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, expressed similar views, saying that the Han Kuang drills were likely extended this year from eight days to two weeks to facilitate more scenarios involving “gray zone” tactics.
When the PLA is conducting its naval and air patrols around Taiwan, it usually deploys six to 10 warships, Su said, adding that if each of them were equipped with vertical launching systems, there could be about 500 land-attack cruise missiles ready to strike targets across Taiwan within three minutes.
That would leave defense forces with even less response time than if Dongfeng (East Wind, 東風) missiles were launched across the Taiwan Strait from China, he said.
That makes simulating such scenarios critically important, particularly as PLA drills near Taiwan have become more frequent in the past few years, he added.
Minister of National Defense Minister Wellington Koo (顧立雄) in a recent legislative hearing said this year’s Han Kuang exercises would be based on a hypothetical invasion by the PLA in 2027, Su said.
That year would mark several milestones in China, such as the 100th anniversary of the PLA’s founding, the start of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) fourth term in office and the 12th year of Xi’s military reforms, he said.
This year’s exercises would test how the Ministry of National Defense would respond in the event of a 2027 invasion and assess any shortcomings in the armed forces’ readiness and arsenal of weapons, Su said.
