By Yimou Lee, Yi-Chin Lee and Ann Wang
NANTOU, Taiwan, July 3 (Reuters) – It was a nightmare situation for Taiwan: a Chinese language blockade, a robust earthquake seized on by Beijing to sow chaos, hijacked tv broadcasts, sabotaged infrastructure, a run on banks, civil unrest — after which a full-scale invasion.
That was the cascading disaster offered to greater than 370 authorities and army officers throughout an train in central Taiwan this week, a part of President Lai Ching-te’s push to harden the island’s warfare preparedness as Chinese language army stress on the democratically ruled island intensifies.
Reuters was granted uncommon unique entry to the closed-door drill, the primary such check of whether or not officers in Nantou, working with central authorities and army companies, may maintain the mountainous county functioning beneath assault.
Taiwan has been ramping up its so-called “resilience” workout routines to organize civilians and officers for crises starting from pure disasters to warfare, shifting past previous drills typically criticised as scripted, performative and of restricted worth.
“Our adversary is correct on our doorstep, simply throughout the Taiwan Strait. That’s very shut,” Chi Lien-cheng, the minister with out portfolio overseeing the two-day drill, advised Reuters.
“Should you do not defend your individual nation, who else will defend you? I believe individuals are starting to grasp that,” he stated, acknowledging there have been nonetheless many shortcomings and that sources may fall quick in an actual catastrophe.
“However that is all proper. We’re right here to see how they perform the train — whether or not they have the desire to soak up these ideas and put them into observe.”
China has by no means renounced the usage of power to convey Taiwan beneath its management. Taiwan’s authorities says solely the island’s folks can resolve their future.
On Thursday, because the drill was ending, Taiwan reported that China had carried out one other “joint fight readiness patrol” across the island with warships and at the very least 22 army plane, together with nuclear-capable H-6 bombers.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Workplace stated Lai was “intentionally escalating” tensions.
“It will solely push Taiwan into the damaging state of affairs of warfare and battle. He is, by and thru, a destroyer of cross-strait peace, a creator of crises within the Taiwan Strait, and an instigator of warfare,” spokesperson Zhu Fenglian stated on Thursday.
‘COSTLY WAR’ MAY NOT SUCCEED
The drill started with a seven-hour tabletop train earlier than shifting the following day to discipline drills that included taking pictures down a Chinese language drone threatening an influence plant and establishing meals ration stations.
The magnitude 6.8 earthquake situation, through which 12 folks had been killed, added one other layer of stress, forcing officers to juggle catastrophe aid, disrupted infrastructure, rising public unrest and wartime contingency planning.
Displayed on massive screens within the drill’s response centre had been a U.S. military-developed tactical mapping and communications system giving officers real-time places of enemy targets.
Alongside had been two Taiwan authorities platforms utilizing interactive maps and icons to visualise unfolding crises, together with the motion of ambulances and different sources that underscored a significant focus of this 12 months’s drill: deeper civil-military integration.
Navy reserve instructions coordinated instantly with native governments, stated Lin Fei-fan, deputy secretary-general of Taiwan’s Nationwide Safety Council, who oversees the resilience-building programme.
“The message to our adversary is evident: once they know Taiwan’s society is ready, they should suppose very fastidiously about whether or not to launch such a expensive warfare in opposition to Taiwan — one that won’t succeed.”
Drawing classes from the wars in Ukraine and the Center East, officers stated that they had made the assessments extra practical for emergency responders and infrastructure operators, together with by shifting hospital operations underground and having skilled hackers assault and stress-test authorities networks and web sites.
One situation included a Chinese language drone assault on the response centre, leaving the destiny of 75 officers unknown and forcing authorities to reply with plans to activate a backup operations centre.
“We won’t really put them by an actual warfare, so we will solely use eventualities to assist them perceive that warfare is extraordinarily merciless — all conditions shall be extreme and pressing,” stated a army official who participated within the drill, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
“When you’ve got not made these preparations in peacetime, you won’t be able to reply.”
Nantou officers got one necessary strategic mission: to remodel Taiwan’s solely landlocked county right into a “rear space”, a refuge for folks fleeing different counties and a fallback zone for operations as frontline troops fought Chinese language forces.
Dozens of grassroots authorities models throughout the nation additionally joined the drills by livestream, responding to eventualities and rapid-fire questions from commanders within the response centre.
The officers had been questioned in granular element on whether or not grassroots models had been prepared — from what number of draft-age males the native authorities may mobilise in a single day to what number of cans of child components the county at the moment had in inventory.
It was not, nevertheless, the form of on a regular basis work native officers — from utilities workers to family registration officers — had been used to.
Because the eventualities darkened, the ambiance within the response centre grew extra intense, with often tense exchanges between commanders and subordinates, a few of whom struggled to supply solutions.
The drill additionally examined how native authorities would counter data warfare. Because the situation unfolded, Chinese language disinformation and sabotage took centre stage.
At one level, native tv broadcasts had been hijacked and changed with Beijing propaganda, whereas misinformation flyers appeared on the streets — echoing a situation within the 2025 Taiwanese tv drama “Zero Day Assault”.
Officers responded by holding mock press conferences, with individuals taught to determine misinformation.
Lee I-yuan, a 75-year-old borough chief who led a neighborhood response group, stated the drill helped him learn to distinguish what was actual from what was pretend.
“If the opposite facet assaults, they’ll undoubtedly use AI to unfold false data,” he stated.
(Reporting By Yimou Lee, Yi-chin Lee and Ann Wang; Modifying by Ben Blanchard and Lincoln Feast.)
Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.
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