Taiwan remodels war games in the face of China’s threats

Taiwan launched annual war games yesterday aiming to more realistically simulate an attack from China, dropping drills deemed to be out-of-touch with the growing threat of conflict.

Self-ruled Taiwan's military has discarded exercises "that were more for demonstration purposes", such as live-fire drills laid on for the media on the main island, said new Defence Minister Wellington Koo.

Officials have said such drills will now be held on Taiwan's outlying islands, where Chinese vessels and warplanes have edged closer in recent months, and that troops would now take part in "impromptu" exercises.

The changes come as Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, has increased its military presence in skies and waters around the island. "Nowadays the situation is more threatened than before, so this type of public relations exercise is useless," Ou Sifu of Taiwan's Institute of National Defense and Security Research said of previous drills.