Taiwan to stage five days of combat readiness drills

Highlights
- Taiwan
to hold "Immediate Combat Readiness Exercise"
- Drill
to start on Monday, run until Friday
- Taiwan
reports another rise in Chinese military flights
- China
views Taiwan as its own territory
Taiwan's military will hold a five-day combat
readiness drill this week, the defence ministry said on Sunday, as part of
modernisation plans to shift its training focus to more realistic exercises
simulating war, away from set-piece events.
Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory
despite the objections of the government in Taipei, says China's armed forces
routinely operate in the skies and seas around the island in an effort to
pressure it to accept Chinese sovereignty.
Taiwan's military has begun basing some of its drills
on a scenario in which China suddenly turns one of its regular exercises around
the island into an actual attack.
The "Immediate Combat Readiness
Exercise" would start on Monday and run until Friday, the defence ministry
said in a statement, describing the drill as part of annual training plans in
joint operations for the armed forces.
"The main objective is to train units at
all levels to become familiar with combat practices and the battlefield
environment during the readiness deployment phase," it said.
The exercise would also help to strengthen rapid
peacetime-to-wartime transitions and priority deployments, it added, with
"actual troops, on actual terrain, in real time, using actual equipment,
and through actual implementation".
It will hone command mechanisms and
combat-oriented capabilities of the troops, with an emphasis on improving joint
operations command and control, logistical sustainment, and battlefield
preparation, the ministry said.
The announcement came on the same day the
ministry said China had sent another large number of military aircraft into the
skies near Taiwan.
There were 21 aircraft, including J-16 fighters,
KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft, and Y-20 aerial refuelling
aircraft, it added.
Nineteen of them entered the airspace to
Taiwan's southwest and into the Western Pacific to conduct "long-distance
training over open seas", it added.
Taiwan sent its own forces to "respond
appropriately", the ministry said, using the standard wording for its
response.
Telephone calls to China's defence ministry to
seek comment were not answered outside office hours on Sunday.
Taiwan regularly holds military drills,
including earlier this month, when it fired its new US-made HIMARS rocket
system, which is widely used by Ukraine, into the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan's main annual Han Kuang war games are
expected to take place in August.
















