Taiwan is preparing for its annual Han Kuang military exercises, a defiant show of force as fears mount of an impending conflict with China.
South China Morning Post (SCMP) has reported that Taiwan is readying for its Han Kuang 2023 military exercise, which is scheduled to be held from July 24-28.
Significantly, this year’s iteration includes simulations of breaking a Chinese blockade, adding to scenarios rehearsed in previous exercises that emphasized defeating a Chinese amphibious invasion.
A US-built system will perform round-the-clock computer simulations of joint, combined and coalition operations as part of the upcoming drills.
Live fire exercises, meanwhile, will emphasize combat force preservation, maritime interception, protection of major facilities such as sea and airports, civil defense mobilization, air defense, and counter-amphibious invasion, according to the SCMP report.
Last year’s Han Kuang exercise focused on different scenarios. In an August 2022 article for Global Taiwan Institute, John Dotson noted that Han Kuang 2022 emphasized dispersal and civil defense drills, naval and air maneuvers, counter-amphibious invasion exercises and a simulated airport seizure.
Dotson mentions that while many of the scenarios featured in Han Kuang 2022 can be realistically expected as part of a Chinese invasion, the heavily scripted nature of the exercise gives it limited value in preparing Taiwan’s military for a real shooting war.
Han Kuang 2021 was broadly similar to 2022’s iteration. In an October 2021 article for the Global Taiwan Institute, Dotson notes that Han Kuang 2021 featured dispersal, biological warfare counter-amphibious invasion, air defense and emergency takeoff and landing drills.
Moreover, he mentioned that Han Kuang 2021 showed Taiwan’s capability to use major highways as improvised runways and the coastal deployment of road-mobile HF-2 and HF-3 anti-ship missiles.
However, Dotson points out that the exercise’s limited scope and timeframe and scripted and piecemeal nature makes it inadequate in preparing Taiwan’s military for an actual Chinese invasion, noting in particular the small number of fighter jets involved in emergency takeoff and landing drills and limited civil defense scenarios.
Han Kuang 2020 was a prelude to the scenarios in 2021 and 2022, but it was notable for introducing several new firsts.
For example, Lienhai Sung notes in a June 2020 article for the Global Taiwan Institute that Han Kuang 2020 included the first-ever deployment of a newly formed Combined Arms Battalion, joint anti-decapitation law enforcement special forces units, joint operations between regular and reservist artillery units and a live-fire torpedo exercise.
Sung mentions that Han Kuang 2020 showed Taiwan’s progress in developing asymmetric warfare capabilities and reservist forces to counter China’s increasingly powerful conventional and paramilitary forces.
But he also cautions that Han Kuang is meant as a capability demonstration, not a field training exercise. Accordingly, Sung says that Han Kuang should measure Taiwan’s progress in developing desired capabilities and not serve merely as a broad check of Taiwan’s overall military modernization.
Despite Taiwan’s determined efforts to shape perceptions of credible defenses through the Han Kuang exercises, it has larger systematic limitations.
Wu Shang-Su notes in a 2015 commentary in the peer-reviewed Journal of Defense Management those include internal issues such as conscription, the high likelihood of Chinese penetration into Taiwan, questionable popular resolve to defend the island against invading forces and the overall slow modernization of Taiwan’s military.
Dotson notes in a February article for the Global Taiwan Institute that conscription is hugely unpopular in Taiwan. The current four-month service contract is too short for meaningful training, with five to seven days of refresher training on alternate years also being inadequate.
Although he mentions that Taiwan plans to revamp its conscription model in 2024 by extending the contract of service to one year, increasing pay for conscripts and laying out a broad framework for how conscripts would be used as “garrison troops” for territorial defense as opposed to all-volunteer main battle troops who will bear the brunt of frontline fighting.
It is an open secret that Chinese spies have extensively penetrated Taiwan’s military, with severe implications for the island’s defense. A Reuters December 2021 special report covers China’s extensive espionage within Taiwan’s military, with top-ranking officers bribed to leak classified information to Chinese spies.
The Reuters report notes that leaked intelligence can be helpful for invasion preparations, while disloyal officers can refuse to fight, misdirect their troops or even defect to China. It also states that Chinese agents can spearhead decapitation operations against Taiwan’s command and control, political and military leaderships.
Although the Taiwanese public has overwhelmingly negative views of China, they harbor significant doubts about the US commitment to Taiwan’s defense.
A March 2020 survey by Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council shows that 90% of respondents oppose China’s “one country, two systems” model, with 90.5% against China’s military intimidation and 91.5% disagreeing with China’s diplomatic suppression of Taiwan.
However, an April 2022 survey by Inkstick shows 53.8% of Taiwanese aged 20 and above believe the US will not intervene on behalf of Taiwan, while only 36.3% say they do.
At the same time, Taiwan may be taking a less-than-optimal approach to its defensive strategy and military modernization. Asia Times pointed out in May 2022 that Taiwan’s “porcupine” and “Fortress Taiwan” strategies will not be enough if blockaded, starved, and pressed to surrender via attrition warfare.
Asia Times noted in December 2022 that Taiwan’s preoccupation with acquiring high-end prestige assets such as frigates and fighter planes, with a view to challenge and fight China’s military head-on, is an unrealistic and escalatory approach.
Nevertheless, Taiwan may move to a “pit viper strategy,” which would entail limited retaliatory missile strikes at major Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai in the event of a conflict.