Taipei, March 12 (IANS) Taiwan is set to conduct a new round of “immediate response” military drills that will begin on March 17 and last five days, local media reported on Wednesday.
These drills by the Taiwanese defence forces will involve all military branches of Taiwan in response to China’s grey zone warfare, state-run Central News Agency reported, quoting military sources.
The drill will be “comprehensive,” with troops dispatched to their assigned defensive positions accordingly, the source said, without elaborating.
The armed forces would be put on high alert through the five-day drills, and the comprehensive exercise was planned as a warm-up for this year’s annual Han Kuang exercises, reports the leading Taiwanese newspaper, Taipei Times.
The military drills, scheduled for next week, are also to prevent China from sabotaging the nation’s submarine cables, a defence official said on Tuesday.
Last month, a Chinese cargo ship flying the flag of another nation was detained on suspicion of severing a cable between Taiwan proper and Penghu County.
Last week, Taiwanese Defence Minister Wellington Koo, told reporters that Beijing might use military exercises to disguise a military buildup before an invasion attempt.
In response to ceaseless “grey zone” harassment and to counter any threat posed by Chinese vessels, armed forces would hold “immediate combat readiness exercises.”
“Taiwan’s Han Kuang military exercises 2025 is aimed to bolster the military’s ability to conduct joint combat operations. The military is to scale its reaction to match the perceived threat level of China’s activities,” Koo further said.
He stated that the focus in 2025 of Taiwan’s largest-scale annual military exercises will be responses to “grey zone” activities, provocative or aggressive actions that fall just short of armed conflict, and improving defence resiliency.”
Grey zone activities refer to actions that involve ambiguous or nontraditional methods that aim to achieve strategic objectives without overtly crossing the threshold into open conflict. The Taiwan Strait has become a focal point for China’s “grey zone” tactics, which include deliberate interference with subsea cables.
For years, Taiwan’s annual military exercises, Han Kuang, have tested the military’s combat readiness in the face of a possible Chinese invasion. The military drills usually feature large-scale live-fire demonstrations, with the President and top generals watching over the highly-publicised missile launches and anti-amphibious landing exercises, according to a report by Taipei Times.
–IANS
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