Taiwan | Taiwan: Tai Chi is not enough against China

This time, the civilian world is also involved: A supermarket chain is rehearsing how it would distribute humanitarian aid in the event of an attack on Taiwan. The population will also learn how to get to safety in the event of an air raid and how to conduct an evacuation. All this will take place while the military, with 22,000 reservists for the first time, is practicing the island's defense, including using defense systems against attacks from the air, sea, and ground. Taiwan is preparing for the worst-case scenario.

Starting this Wednesday, a simulated state of emergency will reign in the island nation, which lies just 120 kilometers from the Chinese mainland. Such military exercises are held annually, but this time they are larger than ever before: more personnel, more equipment, more involvement of civilians, and more time. This year's Han Kuang exercises will last a full ten days and nine nights—twice as long as before.

People's Republic of China vs. Republic of China

Why? The risk that the one-party state ruled from Beijing—officially called the People's Republic of China —will attack the democratically governed island of Taiwan—officially known as the Republic of China—in the near future has recently increased further.

How to behave in such a situation is now to be learned by Taiwanese officials applying knowledge they have recently gained from observing conflicts currently unfolding elsewhere. Based on lessons learned from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Taiwan's military also wants to test its chances of surviving a war of attrition, which an attack by China would likely lead to: Should a war break out, it would likely last for a long time, so the assumption goes. For this very reason, military officials recently explained to the Taiwanese news agency CNA, it is crucial that the civilian and military sectors cooperate closely.

For years, the frequency and intensity of threats from Beijing that it would annex Taiwan by invasion, if necessary, have been increasing. This conflict, often called the Taiwan Conflict, dates back to 1949, when the Chinese Civil War culminated in the defeated Nationalists escaping from the mainland to the island of Taiwan to continue their Republic of China. The Communists installed themselves on the mainland and established the People's Republic of China.

Both states claim to be not only the true, but also the only China. While Taiwan has gradually abandoned its claim to reconquest, mainland China, ruled from Beijing, continues to lay claim to Taiwan. Especially in recent years, as economic growth has slowed, the focus on territorial expansion has increased. Beijing also wants to control Taiwan because it would then have better access to the ocean with its navy.

Since the US and Japan in particular – who want to maintain their influence in the Pacific – are trying to avoid this, their cooperation with Taiwan has increased. The US has long supplied military equipment to Taiwan. But Japan also emphasizes that Taiwan plays a central role in its own security strategy. Narushige Michishita, formerly with the Japan Self-Defense Forces and now a professor at the Tokyo Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, says: "If the US president feels obligated to defend Taiwan, then so do we."

Taiwan uncertain about Trump's intentions

Finally, Taiwan's even larger military exercises this year are explained not least by the fact that Taiwan, too, is uncertain about how Donald Trump would react in the event of a Chinese attack. The US president, who has been in office again since January, has rejected the previous line of US foreign policy in several areas. At the German-Taiwanese Symposium in Berlin, co-organized by Taiwan's mission in Germany, Angela Stanzel of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) recently emphasized: "Nobody knows what Trump is thinking." The military buildup is continuing out of caution.

And it's not just Taiwan that's been playing war these days. In April, mainland China, ruled from Beijing, practiced precise attacks on key targets and joint blockades in the central and southern parts of the Taiwan Strait. Shi Yi, a colonel in the Chinese Eastern Command, explained in a statement at the time: "The exercises focus on identification, verification, warning and expulsion, as well as interception and detention." To many, it sounded like planning the first stage of an invasion.