Taiwan is to use its annual war games to simulate a Chinese invasion in 2027 amid rising tensions between the self-governing island and Beijing.
Defence minister Wellington Koo said the first phase of the exercises this week would train Taiwanese forces to mobilise quickly against any attack from the mainland.
“For the People’s Liberation Army [of China], turning drills into an attack doesn’t take as much time as we imagined in the past,” Mr Koo told parliament on Wednesday, adding that Taiwan “must prepare for the worst from the enemy”.
Beijing this week deployed 59 military aircraft and a number of warships close to Taiwan in an exercise it described as “punishment” for recent statements by Taiwan’s president William Lai. The Taiwanese defence ministry said 22 PLA military aircraft entered the island’s air defence identification zone on Monday.
Speaking to reporters after a national security meeting in Taipei last Thursday, Mr Lai said Beijing met the definition of a “foreign hostile force” under Taiwan’s Anti-Infiltration Act.
[ Denis Staunton on Trump’s return, China’s rise and the shifting global orderOpens in new window ]
“China’s ambition to annex Taiwan and stamp out the Republic of China has not changed for even a day,” he alleged, referring to the island by its official name.
“Lately, China has been using Taiwan’s democratic freedoms to infiltrate our society, recruiting media, commentators, political parties, and even active and retired military and police personnel to subvert us from within.”
Mr Lai said he would restore Taiwan’s military court system, which was abolished in 2013 following a controversy over the death of an army conscript. A number of high-profile espionage cases in recent years have involved serving or retired members of the Taiwanese armed forces accused of spying for Beijing.
Mr Lai’s government is also concerned about Taiwanese entertainers working in mainland China who have reposted social media statements asserting Beijing’s territorial claim over Taiwan. And it is clamping down on Taiwanese citizens who also hold Chinese national identity cards, forbidding public servants and military personnel from doing so.
Mr Lai said groups linked to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, which liaises with social, religious and cultural bodies, will be banned from visiting Taiwan. And Taiwanese government officials, including local government personnel and legislators, will have to report any visits to the Chinese mainland.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office denounced Mr Lai’s intervention, warning that Beijing would take “decisive measures” if Taipei crossed its red line. “Those who play with fire will surely be burned,” spokesman Chen Binhua said.
Mr Lai has adopted a more assertive tone over Taiwan’s sovereignty since he succeeded Tsai Ing-wen as president last year, drawing criticism from the opposition KMT, which favours closer ties to Beijing but opposes reunification. Police searched the offices of KMT parliamentary leader Fu Kun-chi earlier this month over campaign goods suspected of being provided by the Chinese government.
The KMT last week discussed plans to propose a referendum on Mr Lai’s plan to reinstate military tribunals, drafting the wording of the question to be put to voters: “Given that president Lai has designated China a foreign hostile force, placing cross-strait relations in a quasi-war state, do you support following Ukraine’s example by implementing martial law and reinstating military tribunals?”
The KMT, which governed Taiwan under martial law for decades, has accused Mr Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party of authoritarian tendencies. They point to the DPP’s social media post, later deleted, initially expressing support for South Korea’s president Yoon Suk-yeol’s brief imposition of martial law last December.
