A New Realism

Taiwan’s Han Kuang drills confront China’s coercion with grit and gunpowder.

In a show of force unlike any Taiwan has mounted in public before, its Armed Forces recently staged live-fire drills in the heart of a densely populated zone to simulate a Chinese assault on the capital.

The Taiwanese Armed Forces deployed live C4 explosives, combat obstacles and riverine defences as part of the annual Han Kuang military exercises. For the first time, the military demonstrated live ordnance deployment to block a potential amphibious landing by Chinese forces - a tactic Beijing is suspected of rehearsing through frequent grey-zone manoeuvres.

The message was unambiguous: Taiwan is preparing not just for a theoretical conflict but for a very real Chinese assault.

The Han Kuang (“Han Glory”) exercises are not new. Instituted in 1984, they are the crown jewel of Taiwan’s military preparedness calendar. But this year’s iteration was hardly routine as for the first time, Taiwan’s Army publicly demonstrated live explosive deployment on home soil in a break from decades of restrained messaging. At a moment when Beijing’s bellicosity grows more brazen, Taiwan’s response is moving from strategic ambiguity to blunt deterrence.

The focal point of the exercise was the Tamsui River. It leads directly to the capital and, in the event of war, would offer a direct amphibious corridor for Chinese hovercrafts, underwater drones and maritime militia, elements of what analysts now call China’s “grey zone” toolkit.

The Army’s 53rd Engineer Group simulated blocking such an incursion with three defensive belts: a floating wall of pontoons and nets, oil barrels, and amphibious vehicles. If this looked like a scene from a Cold War film, it was meant to.

The strategic calculus is not confined to the banks of the Tamsui. Over on Nangan Island just off the Chinese coast, the Matsu Defence Command intercepted simulated drone threats, echoing China’s real-life use of drones to buzz Taiwan’s outer islands and test the vigilance of its troops. On the Taiwan Strait, Beijing’s military has transitioned from symbolic flybys to near-daily air and naval harassment. In 2023 alone, Taiwan reported more than 1,700 Chinese aircraft incursions into its air defence identification zone.

That kind of pressure is precisely what Taiwan’s Han Kuang exercises aim to confront. Previous editions were criticised as choreographed affairs meant more for television than tactical readiness. This year’s response is different. According to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, the drills are simulating “realistic conditions” backed by 22,000 reservists.

Beijing’s response was swift and predictable. It accused the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of stoking confrontation and insisted that such drills “cannot stop the historical trend of national reunification.”

Geopolitically, this year’s exercises also reflect a deeper shift in Taipei’s worldview. Gone is the assumption that international partners, especially the United States, will arrive in time. Washington continues to provide weapons under its policy of ‘strategic ambiguity.’

In a world reshaped by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and wavering Western resolve, Taiwan is recalibrating its expectations.

It is not alone. Across the Indo-Pacific, countries from Japan to the Philippines are watching Taiwan’s preparations with growing interest and anxiety. Japan has reinterpreted its pacifist constitution to allow for counterstrike capabilities. The Philippines is granting expanded access to American forces. Australia is rearming after decades of defence austerity. The region is increasingly hedging against the possibility of a Taiwan contingency turning into a wider conflagration.

None of this guarantees that deterrence will succeed. But Taiwan’s new realism is sobering and overdue. The Tamsui drill was a loud reminder that beneath the veneer of status quo lies a dangerously unstable balance. In demonstrating that it will not wait helplessly for allies or fall back on diplomacy alone, Taiwan is sending a signal to its own people as much as to Beijing: the island may be small, but it will not go quietly.

If the first rule of deterrence is credibility, then Han Kuang 2025 has made one thing clear that Taiwan is no longer rehearsing. It is preparing.