Defense News

The Ministry of National Defense (“MND”) said today that one of the Han Kuang Military Exercises, Computer-based Military Simulation (serial number 36), was completed as of last week. The drill simulations took into consideration the latest regional developments and renewed threat, focusing on defense warfare requirements across the Taiwan Strait in response to the increasingly bleak situations. Remarkable results were reached, successfully serving the training purposes. With regard to the media coverage about right of self-defense, insufficient precision-guided munition, results of Han-Kuang Exercises, the MND made the following statements for clarification:

1. Given years of harassment and threat to our airspace and territorial waters, the military of the Republic of China holds onto the belief of tuning down escalation and refraining from conflict, insisting on non-provocative and dauntless stance. The closer the enemy gets to the main island of Taiwan, the more aggressively we will act. The right of self of defense is the pivotal principle in the guidelines for all militaries to respond to unexpected situations. Since the introduction of the guidelines, the armed forces have been able to adhere to the principle and react accordingly.

2. All of the military’s precision-guided munitions are procured in accordance with respective military design and manpower supply plan. The inventory does satisfy our current defense requirements, which does not coincide with what the media has covered. However, due to increasing investment by the communist Chinese government in military development and its rising invasive strength, computer-based simulations have been devised by the military as an independent maneuver in response to the latest developments and strengthened military threat. Participants are expected to envision the most stringent warfare scenario—i.e. saturated attack—and mastermind how to boost battle readiness and facilitate supply of air- and naval-based munitions on the basis of strategic analysis and tactical requirements in response to increasing external threat.

3. The media coverage titled “The blue has lost many computer-based military simulations” does not have any merit. The purpose of conducting such maneuver aims at validating combat readiness in the most stringent, demanding scenario, in which participants are required to identify and solve problems using the JTLS system and the guidelines for joint warfare operations. The dichotomy of win-lose is not of critical concern.