As the Republic of China concludes its major annual Han Kuang military exercise, the verdict is in from the mainland’s defense ministry. One, it’s a charade. Two, stokes panic. Three, silly. Four, counterproductive. Five, scaremongering. Six, dumb. Seven, stupid. Eight, foolish. Nine, ill-conceived. Ten, waste of time. Eleven, normality-disrupting. Twelve, dubiously named.
This is the view of ministry spokesman Chen Xi. “The so-called ‘Han Kuang exercise’ has always been a posturing, wasteful charade,” Chen fumed. “The Democratic Progressive Party authorities have also recklessly stoked war panic, accelerating efforts to turn cities into battlefields and push ordinary people to the front lines” (Reuters, August 14, 2026).
Chen gives the impression of seeming to suggest that the best way for Taiwanese soldiers and civilians to prepare for an invasion by the People’s Liberation Army—which the mainland keeps threatening, incessantly, in word and deed—is to permit all military knowledge and skill and guns and other equipment to atrophy or rust and just prepare to surrender. Well, it’s a theory.
Meanwhile, says Chen, the PLA is every day in every way attending to its own combat readiness, the better to “counter separatism and external interference. This remains the solid trump card for safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and for maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.” The script is not the best.
