- TAIPEI (AFP) - Taiwan's armed
forces staged a drill simulating an invasion by rival China Wednesday,
as a military computer exercise showed the Taiwanese troops could withstand
a similar onslaught for just six days. The scenario of the maneuver, the
first of two rehearsals for a major exercise to be held on August 25, was
that Taiwan troops had failed to hold off an amphibious landing by Chinese
forces, TVBS cable television showed.
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- As Taiwan troops tried to stop simulated Chinese forces
from pushing further inland, a fleet of US-made Cobra and OH-58D Scout
gunships fired laser-guided Hellfire missiles while howitzers and tanks
fired on targets.
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- China, which has some 600 ballistic missiles aimed at
the island, has itself been staging large-scale military exercises on Dongshan
island, 150 nautical miles west of Taiwan, as part of its stepped up preparedness
for any conflict with the island.
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- Taiwan's drill came as Defense Minister Lee Jye confirmed
a report that in a recent computer-simulated exercise, Taiwanese troops
were wiped out 130 hours after the People's Liberation Army (PLA) started
invading.
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- But Lee was swift to urge Taiwanese not to panic over
the outcome of the simulation.
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- "The computer drill included the toughest scenarios
so that we are able to know where our flaws are," Lee told reporters.
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- Also the simulated attacks did not include intervention
by the United States and Japan, the Chinese-language Apple Daily said.
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- The blitz was simulated as happening in 2006, the year
when President Chen Shui-bian is scheduled to push for a new Taiwan constitution,
which Beijing has warned against, the daily said.
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- After the first day of the Chinese "attacks",
Taiwan's airports, bunkers, harbours and key government buildings were
destroyed by extensive assaults using 700 ballistic missiles, it said.
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- The bulk of the air force's 330 jet fighters were destroyed
two days after the attacks started.
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- The simulated battles ended when the PLA captured the
capital Taipei in the sixth day of the assault.
-
- Against this backdrop, former deputy defense minister
Lin Chong-pin recommended the military beef up its preparedness for street
battles in any "asymmetric warfare" with China.
-
- Citing the US forces' painful lesson in Iraq, Lin said:
"Street battles would be an excellent strategy in a place known as
a city jungle."
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- To counter China's arms buildup, Taiwan's defense ministry
plans to purchase eight conventional submarines, 12 P-3C submarine-hunting
aircraft and modified Patriot PAC-3 systems from the United States.
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- Since pro-independence Chen was re-elected in March Beijing
has stressed its long-standing vow to take Taiwan by force should the island
try to declare formal independence.
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- The two sides split in 1949 at the end of a civil war.
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