DEFENSE/Much of China's military drill 'livestream' pre-recorded: Defense minister

Taipei, Oct. 17 (CNA) A significant portion of China's "livestream" of the Joint Sword-2024B military drills it staged around Taiwan on Oct. 14 was pre-recorded, Taiwan's Defense Minister Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said Thursday.

During a legislative hearing, ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Lin Chu-yin (林楚茵) brought up the "livestream" available on China's state-run CCTV and asked Koo to comment on its veracity.

Koo replied that much of the "livestream" was pre-recorded footage.

"We compared the 'livestream' with the situation at the scene and found that they were different," Koo said.

"Furthermore, we found that some footage was identical to previously released footage," he said. "You could tell that a large part of it was pre-recorded rather than live-streamed."

Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升), head of the Ministry of National Defense's (MND) Office of Deputy Chief of General Staff for Intelligence, also said that "the livestream was mostly produced in advance."

Hsieh added that China hoped to convey to viewers in Taiwan that there was a "causality" behind the drills -- that it was due to something Taiwan had done that invited the outcome of the staging of the drills.

"In fact, China had long since planned the drills, it didn't matter what we did," Hsieh said, adding that such a false casualty aimed at deceiving was a typical "gray zone" tactic.

Meanwhile, Lin suggested that the MND include the "livestream" of Joint Sword-2024B in the teaching materials it has planned to develop with academia and the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a ministry-affiliated think tank, to boost public media literacy and curb the spread of disinformation.

The drills, which came just days after President Lai Ching-te's (賴清德) National Day speech on Oct. 10, were described as a "stern warning to the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces" by the People's Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command.