Taiwan’s military simulated repelling a Chinese air landing assault on the strategically vital Penghu Islands on Monday. The 10-day Han Kuang exercise kicked off last week, rehearsing various scenarios should China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, ever make good on threats to try and seize the island by force.

Simulated Assault

Troops from the First Theatre Command opened fire in the pre-dawn hours on a beach in Penghu, which sits in the Taiwan Strait, with M60A3 tanks, various artillery pieces and anti-aircraft guns. The troops were combining to form what the military called a “multi-layered” defence against a simulated enemy attempting a rapid coastal landing.

Penghu, which sits closer to the coast of the main island of Taiwan than to China, is seen by Taiwanese strategists as a potential first target for Beijing, which could try and take the islands and use them as a base to attack Taiwan with missiles and drones.

Mobile Internet Disruption

Later on Monday in central Taiwan, the government will deliberately slow mobile internet speeds for the first time during the civil defence part of the drills, testing how citizens would communicate if bandwidth became scarce in emergencies ranging from disasters to a Chinese invasion. Key services, from ATMs and traffic signals to emergency ambulance calls, will not be affected, and neither will landlines nor fixed internet services.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.