Taiwan will begin a five-day combat readiness exercise on Monday as part of efforts to modernise its military by shifting from scripted drills to more realistic war simulations, the defence ministry announced on Sunday.
Taiwan says China, which claims the self-governed island as its own territory, has been increasing military pressure through frequent air and naval operations around the island in an attempt to force Taipei to accept Chinese sovereignty.
The Taiwanese military has recently begun designing some exercises around the possibility that one of China’s routine military drills could suddenly escalate into a full-scale attack.
According to the defence ministry, the “Immediate Combat Readiness Exercise” will run from Monday to Friday as part of the armed forces’ annual joint operations training programme.
“The main objective is to train units at all levels to become familiar with combat practices and the battlefield environment during the readiness deployment phase,” the ministry said.