Taiwan Rehearses Bridge Blockades and Presidential Evacuation as Han Kuang War Games Wrap Up

Taiwan wrapped up its 10-day Han Kuang 42 exercise this month, and the details that leaked out paint a blunt picture of where military planners see vulnerability and how they're preparing to defend it.

The exercise ran from Aug. 5 through mid-August, mobilizing roughly 20,000 active-duty and reserve personnel, according to the Epoch Times. That's not a paper drill. Reservists were organized into brigade-level units in the north and south, about 5,000 people total, which Yu Tsung-chi, former dean at Taiwan's National Defense University, told the Epoch Times was a first for Han Kuang.

The bridge that worries planners more than the beaches

Much of the public attention on a Chinese invasion focuses on a large-scale amphibious landing across the Taiwan Strait. But Taiwanese forces spent serious time this year on something less cinematic: the Tamsui River, which cuts through northwest Taiwan and empties into the strait roughly 100 miles from China's Fujian province, according to Business Insider.

The concern is the Danjiang Bridge, a newly opened cable-stayed span — the world's longest single-mast asymmetric cable-stayed bridge — that crosses the mouth of the Tamsui in New Taipei City, according to both Reuters (via Emra News and the Straits Times). If an invading force seized and held that bridge, it could move troops and supplies from a southern-bank landing zone straight to the northern bank and into Taipei itself.

Chieh Chung, a researcher at Taiwan's Institute for National Defence and Security Research, told Reuters that keeping the bridge open would let Chinese forces "quickly cross it to reach the northern bank of the Tamsui River and then move into Taipei itself." During the drill, soldiers strung barbed wire, stacked sandbags, and drove military vehicles onto the span. Notably, cyclists and pedestrians kept using the unblocked lanes. Taiwan News reported this was the first time the bridge was actually closed to simulate a full blockade, a step up from prior years.

Tristan Tang, a nonresident fellow at the U.S.-based National Bureau of Asian Research, told Business Insider the Tamsui corridor is a "real geographic vulnerability," noting China's Zubr-class air-cushion landing craft can move at more than 50 knots and that PLA air assault troops could arrive by helicopter. The river mouth, Bali Beach, and Taipei Port together form what planners call the "iron triangle" guarding the capital's flank.

Evacuating the president

Separately, President Lai Ching-te and his staff practiced an emergency evacuation dubbed "Wan Chun," simulating a decapitation strike on Taiwan's leadership, according to CNN. An armored