Taiwan’s defense ministry says this year’s Han Kuang military drills will be the largest in history. The announcement comes as China continues to ramp up threats to take Taiwan by force.
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00:00Taiwan is gearing up for its largest ever military drills.
00:11Known as the Hanguang exercises, Taiwan has been simulating how it would defend against
00:16an all-out attack from China, and these drills are crucial for the country's defense.
00:21The drills are separated into two sections.
00:24The first is a two-week computer simulation, which uses war games to simulate different
00:28scenarios and outcomes.
00:30The second part includes live-fire drills, which usually take place for five days in
00:34late July, but given recent tensions with China, those have been extended to ten days.
00:39Officials have confirmed that the computer drills will start on Saturday.
00:43In past iterations of Hanguang, Taiwan has practiced situations such as landing on highways,
01:04defending the coastline, and air defense, but this year the drills will focus heavily
01:09on how the military can quickly mobilize its armed forces, forcing soldiers on the
01:14ground to make decisions themselves, instead of waiting for orders from higher-ups.
01:19This move is in response to how China is conducting its own drills, as recent military exercises
01:24from Beijing show how quickly it can make a move on Taiwan.
01:46The Hanguang exercises have been criticized in the past for being too scripted, with critics
01:51pointing to one part of the drill in which a team in red, simulating China, always loses
01:56to the defending Taiwan blue team.
01:58Taiwan's military has now gotten rid of this part of the drill, something being hailed
02:03as a step forward towards a more robust defense strategy.
02:06The fact that they are operating without a script is really terrific because it makes
02:12people start thinking independently, not just waiting for orders to arrive from a centralized
02:17location because command and control in a realistic war scenario could be damaged.
02:22Bringing that initiative down to the lower units is really, really vital and it's terrific
02:27to see.
02:28With China having just wrapped up large-scale blockade drills around Taiwan, this year's
02:32Hanguang exercises are ever more important, as the country improves its plans to prevent
02:37a conflict from breaking out.
02:39Howard Zhang and Jaime O'Connor for Taiwan Plus.