DEFENSE/U.S. experts laud changes to Taiwan's upcoming Han Kuang drills

Washington, July 2 (CNA) Taiwan's increased focus on gray zone threats and its lengthening of the annual Han Kuang military drills' live-fire portion to 10 days have been praised by two American defense experts.

"Taiwan is on the right track to contribute to deterrence and should continue apace with heightened urgency and resources," Ely Ratner, a former assistant secretary for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs at the Pentagon, told CNA Wednesday.

Ratner, now a senior advisor to the Washington-based consulting firm, Clarion Strategies, said the changes to the annual large-scale Han Kuang exercises "reflect an important ongoing evolution in the strengthening of Taiwan's defenses and resilience."

Meanwhile, John Dotson, director of the Washington-based Global Taiwan Institute, said that the changes meant this year's exercises would be "less scripted," allowing for "a bit more spontaneity, and the confusion that comes with actual warfare."

Dotson said that in the past years, Han Kuang has largely been "a performance" that is "highly scripted, and more of a public relations project than a meaningful military exercise."

Now it seems that Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) is finally willing to take some "positive steps" in the "right direction," the former U.S. Navy officer told CNA in an email.

"Learning to adapt to disruption and chaos is a valuable training benefit of less scripted exercises," he said.

Doston added that it would also "be interesting to see how the exercise planners balance the traditional invasion scenario with the reported focus on countering gray zone pressure."

The MND announced on Tuesday that the live-fire portion of this year's Han Kuang military exercises would be 10 days, twice as long as previous drills, and would have an added focus on China's "gray zone" tactics -- coercive actions that fall short of open conflict.

According to Major General Tung Chi-hsing (董冀星), director of the MND joint operations planning division, the scenario begins with gray zone harassment from the Chinese military, transitioning through phases such as peace-to-war shift, force deployment, joint anti-landing operations, coastal and beachhead combat, in-depth defense, and protracted warfare.

The annual Han Kuang exercises, which have served as Taiwan's major war games since 1984, consist of live-fire drills and computerized tabletop war games.

The drills aim to test Taiwan's combat readiness in the face of a possible Chinese invasion.

This year's tabletop war games were conducted from April 5-18.