Taiwan Simulates Repelling Chinese Assault on Penghu
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- First Theatre Command troops opened fire on a Penghu beach in pre-dawn darkness using M60A3 tanks, artillery pieces, and anti-aircraft guns, forming what the military called a "multi-layered" defense against a simulated rapid coastal landing
- Penghu Islands sit in the Taiwan Strait and are considered by Taiwanese strategists a potential first target for Beijing, which could use captured islands as a missile and drone base against the main island
- Penghu reservists took part in the exercise as part of their 14-day training programme, reflecting Taiwan's push to integrate reserve forces into operational planning and make preparations more realistic
- Taiwan's government will deliberately slow mobile internet speeds for the first time during the civil defence portion of the drills, testing how citizens would communicate if bandwidth became scarce in a disaster or invasion
- Key services including ATMs, traffic signals, emergency ambulance calls, landlines, and fixed internet will not be affected by the throttling; the government pre-warned the public via bilingual text alerts and social media videos
- Northern Taiwan, including the capital Taipei, will repeat the same internet throttling exercise on Thursday
- The Han Kuang exercise spans 10 days and rehearses scenarios for a Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan by force
Why it matters: Taiwan is converting its deterrence posture from diplomatic language into rehearsed procedure — staging a live coastal defense on a Beijing first-strike target while preparing civilians for bandwidth rationing. The deliberate exemption of ATMs, traffic signals, and ambulance calls shows the throttling targets everyday civilian connectivity rather than emergency infrastructure, a granular civil-defence distinction rarely rehearsed publicly.
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