Taiwan to stage war games amid high tensions with China: report
More than 20,000 soldiers would be mobilized for the war games to be held in northeast Ilan county, although 50,000 personnel would be involved in the exercises overall, the Apple Daily said.
The report comes amid high tensions between Taipei and Beijing after Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's last week scrapped the advisory council on reunifying with the Chinese mainland.
The drills were intended to "assess the defense capabilities backed up by some newly acquired weaponry," the Apple Daily quoted an unnamed Defense Ministry official as saying.
Codenamed "Hankuang 22 (Han Glory)", the war games would begin in April with computer simulated events and climax with live fire drills in July, the paper said.
On display would be Kidd class destroyers, F-16 jet fighters, AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters, and E-2C airbone early warning and command aircraft, it said.
The Defense Ministry refused to confirm the timing or size of the drills, saying only that details of the war games had yet to be finalized.
Tensions spiked last week after Chen, defying pressure from Washington and Beijing, formally abolished the National Unification Council and its and guidelines designed to seek eventual reunification with the mainland.
The council was considered largely symbolic and had been dormant since 2000 but Chen's decision infuriated Beijing, which accused the Taiwan leader of pushing the region towards disaster.
China itself carried out military exercises last week coinciding with the spike in tensions.
Chen has defended his decision, saying it was prompted by Beijing's persistent military threat and its attempts to use non-peaceful means to unilaterally change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.
Even though China and Taiwan separated after a civil war in 1949, Beijing still considers the island part of its territory and has threatened to retake the island by force if it moves towards independence.