Taiwan Disrupts Internet Access During China Airstrike Drill
Internet services were disrupted for a half hour in Taipei and other cities across northern Taiwan on Thursday as part of drills testing the island’s ability to maintain communications and respond to network disruptions during a Chinese air raid.
‘Urban Resilience’
A siren sounded at 2:30 p.m. local time, prompting pedestrians to seek shelter and drivers to pull over until 3 p.m. The air raid drill came after “throttling” exercises earlier in the week that slowed internet speeds across much of Taiwan’s main island as authorities simulated disruptions to communications networks.
The so-called urban resilience drills are part of Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang exercises, which in recent years have adopted an increasingly realistic and whole-of-society approach as tensions continue to simmer across the Taiwan Strait.
“I sincerely ask for everyone’s understanding, and I sincerely ask for everyone’s support, because this is a necessary exercise,” local media quoted President Lai Ching-te saying Thursday while he reviewed exercise preparations. “The more we drill, the more resilient we become. And the more resilient we are, when something happens, society will be that much more stable.”
China has ramped up pressure on Taiwan since the ruling Democratic Progressive Party first won the presidency in 2016, including through large-scale military exercises simulating a blockade and near-daily air and naval operations around the island.
China claims Taiwan—a top U.S. trade partner and producer of most of the world’s advanced microchips—as its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve unification. U.S. officials have warned they believe Chinese President Xi Jinping could move against Taiwan by the end of the decade, though President Trump says Xi assured him he would not do so during Trump’s term in office.
Taiwan’s government and a majority of Taiwanese reject those claims. A National Chengchi University poll released in March found fewer than 8 percent of respondents supported unification with China.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry via email for comment.
Preparing for a Crisis
Elsewhere in Taipei on Thursday, Taiwan’s military staged drills simulating an attack on the capital following a Chinese landing operation.
In Wanhua District, troops established defensive positions and deployed anti-armor weapons in a scenario designed to prevent enemy armored units from moving deeper into the capital after a simulated amphibious landing, the Central News Agency reported.
Similar urban exercises were held across other parts of Taiwan earlier in the week as authorities tested traffic controls, evacuation procedures, emergency communications, and coordination with civilian volunteer groups.
Running for 10 days, this year’s Han Kuang exercises are the longest on record and place greater emphasis on protracted warfare, urban defense and civil-military coordination than in previous years.
For the first time, resilience drills were fully integrated with the military exercise framework, requiring local governments and military units to operate under the same wartime scenarios rather than conducting separate drills.
Other firsts this year included the first tests of cross-county medical evacuations and supply deliveries during a wartime emergency, as well as drills in which hospitals operated from temporary underground facilities.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Feng and Sam Wilson.