TAMSUI/TAOYUAN, Taiwan: Taiwan carried out anti-landing drills on a strategic river on Monday at the start of the annual Han Kuang war games, which this year aim to be as close as possible to actual combat with no script and simulating how to repel a Chinese attack.
China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its territory, has been staging regular exercises around the island for four years to pressure Taipei to accept Beijing’s claim of sovereignty, despite Taiwan’s strong objections.
Taiwan’s drills this year have canceled elements that were mostly for show, like scripted firepower displays, while there will be intensified nighttime exercises and practicing how to operate with severed command lines.
Kicking off the first day of exercises in Tamsui at the mouth of a major river leading to Taipei, soldiers practiced laying mines and nets to stymie the landing of enemy forces, part of a series of drills designed to prevent the capital being seized.
“We are trying our best to slow them down as much as possible,” military office Chang Chih-pin told reporters, referring to a scenario where the enemy was trying to make landfall by sending rubber boats into the Tamsui River.
“The slower they move, the better for us,” he added.
Earlier on Monday in nearby Taoyuan, outside of Taipei and home to Taiwan’s main international airport, reservists gathered to get their orders as they would during a war, and civilian vans were pressed into service to carry supplies.
On Thursday, Taoyuan airport will close for an hour in the morning for the drills, though a typhoon is expected to be impacting the island that day meaning that the exercise could be delayed.
Taiwan’s defense ministry also published video of air force fighter jets at the Hualien air base on the island’s east coast, which has hangars cut out of the side of a mountain to protect aircraft from aerial attack.
Live fire drills will only take place on Taiwan’s outlying islands, including Kinmen and Matsu which sit nestled next to the Chinese coast and were the scene of on-off clashes during the height of the Cold War.
The five-day war games will be happening in conjunction with the Wan’an civil defense drills, where the streets of major cities are evacuated for half an hour during a simulated Chinese missile attack, and test warning alarms will sound on mobile phones.
The drill scenarios this week include setting up contingency command lines after existing hubs are destroyed and dispersing Chinese forces trying to land on Taiwan’s western coastline facing China, a defense official involved in the planning said.
China held two days of its own war games around the island shortly after President Lai Ching-te took office in May, saying it was “punishment” for his inauguration speech, which Beijing denounced as being full of separatist content.
But China has also been using grey zone warfare against Taiwan, wielding irregular tactics to exhaust a foe by keeping them continually on alert without resorting to open combat. This includes almost daily air force missions into the skies near Taiwan.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Lai, who says only the Taiwanese people can decide their future, has repeatedly offered talks but been rebuffed.
Taiwan starts annual war games, aiming to closely mimic actual combat
Taiwan starts annual war games, aiming to closely mimic actual combat
- The five-day war games will be happening in conjunction with the Wan’an civil defense drills
- China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control
Treason trial of South Sudan’s suspended VP is further eroding peace deal, UN experts say
- The experts said forces from both sides are continuing to confront each other across much of the country
- “Years of neglect have fragmented government and opposition forces alike,” the experts said
UNITED NATIONS: The treason trial of South Sudan’s suspended vice president is further eroding a 2018 peace agreement he signed with President Salva Kiir, UN experts warned in a new report.
As Riek Machar’s trial is taking place in the capital, Juba, the experts said forces from both sides are continuing to confront each other across much of the country and there is a threat of renewed major conflict.
UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the UN Security Council last month that the crisis in South Sudan is escalating, “a breaking point” has become visible, and time is running “dangerously short” to bring the peace process back on track.
There were high hopes when oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long conflict, but the country slid into a civil war in December 2013 largely based on ethnic divisions, when forces loyal to Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled those loyal to Machar, an ethnic Nuer.
More than 400,000 people were killed in the war, which ended with the 2018 peace agreement that brought Kiir and Machar together in a government of national unity. But implementation has been slow, and a long-delayed presidential election is now scheduled for December 2026.
The panel of UN experts stressed in a report this week that the political and security landscape in South Sudan looks very different today than it did in 2018 and that “the conflict that now threatens looks much different to those that came before.”
“Years of neglect have fragmented government and opposition forces alike,” the experts said, “resulting in a patchwork of uniformed soldiers, defectors and armed community defense groups that are increasingly preoccupied by local struggles and often unenthused by the prospect of a national confrontation. ”
With limited supplies and low morale, South Sudan’s military has relied increasingly on aerial bombings that are “relatively indiscriminate” to disrupt the opposition, the experts said.
In a major escalation of tensions in March, a Nuer militia seized an army garrison. Kiir’s government responded, charging Machar and seven other opposition figures with treason, murder, terrorism and other crimes.
The UN experts said Kiir and his allies insist that, despite having dismissed Machar, implementation of the peace agreement is unaffected, pointing to a faction of the opposition led by Stephen Par Kuol that is still engaged in the peace process.
Those who refused to join Kuol and sided with Machar’s former deputy, Natheniel Oyet, “have largely been removed from their positions, forcing many to flee the country,” the experts said in the report.
The African Union, regional countries and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, have all called for Machar’s release and stressed their strong support for implementation of the 2018 agreement, the panel said.
According to the latest international assessment, 7.7 million people — 57 percent of the population — face “crisis” levels of food insecurity, with pockets of famine in some communities most affected by renewed fighting, the panel said.
