Taiwan Holds First Joint Navy-Coast Guard Anti-Blockade Drill — SkimNews
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- Taiwan's navy and coast guard conducted their first joint anti-blockade drill on Aug 12 during the Han Kuang war games, with a mine sweeper clearing a safe navigation channel to guide the simulated merchant vessel to an east-coast port; the coast guard said it marked the first time the two services had run such an exercise together.
- The Han Kuang exercise, a 10-day annual drill that kicked off the prior week, includes wartime defensive measures — soldiers erected metal barricades, barbed-wire obstacles and concrete barriers on roads leading to a key Taipei bridge on the night of Aug 12.
- Chieh Chung, a researcher at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research watching the bridge drill, said military plans call for obstacle zones extending from bridges to pre-designated kill zones and potentially demolishing the bridges to keep the People's Liberation Army from advancing rapidly into Taipei.
- President Lai Ching-te on Aug 13 toured an underground car park at a New Taipei hospital that had been converted into an emergency wartime ward, accompanied by the de facto US, Israeli and Canadian ambassadors; Taiwan has said it is keen to learn from Israel's civil defence operations.
- China began holding what it calls 'law enforcement' patrols off Taiwan's east coast in June, drawing anger from Taipei and concern in Washington and other Western capitals about a possible blockade or quarantine of the island.
Why it matters: Taiwan's first combined navy-coast guard anti-blockade drill, paired with bridge barricades and Lai's hospital-bunker inspection alongside US, Israeli and Canadian diplomats, shows Taipei is publicly rehearsing for sustained blockade conditions — the scenario Beijing opened with its June 'law enforcement' patrols off the east coast.
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