After Europe and West Asia, tensions are brewing in the Indo-Pacific. In a development that could significantly escalate tensions, Taiwan is set to launch military drills with the largest-ever call-up of reservist forces amid China’s increased military activity.
The Taiwanese Defence Minister Wellington Koo informed Parliament that up to 22,000 reservists, compared to 14,647 in 2024, would be called up to participate in the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s biggest annual military exercises to be held in July.
“Our main objective is to verify how much time it takes for a reserve brigade to regain full combat capability after being called up,” he was quoted as saying by local media.
Every 19-year-old male citizen in the country is required to complete a year of mandatory military service or an equivalent civilian service. They are listed as reservists once their one-year service is up, and they will continue to be called up until they are released.
Taiwan trains its reservists through a standing call-up system. The Han Kuang exercises will include an extended mobilisation for the year, according to reports.
The Han Kuang exercises have been Taiwan’s largest annual military war games since at least the 1980s. The Han Kuang drills are held annually to assess Taiwan’s combat readiness in the event of a potential Chinese invasion, and typically include computerized war games and live-fire drills.
China considers Taiwan a renegade province and has made no bones about its intentions to seize the island state, with force, if necessary.
These upcoming drills are also being extended to enhance the self-ruled island state’s response to China’s “grey zone” harassment, CNA News reported. The exercises will now last ten days and nine nights (between July 9 and 18) instead of the previous five days and four nights in 2024.
In addition to the extended call-up, this year’s Han Kuang will be merged with the recently initiated Urban Resilience Exercises to test the nation’s potential to defeat China in an attrition-based war, according to a report in Focus Taiwan.
An unnamed military source told the publication that modern warfare usually devolves into an attrition-based conflict, specifically one that is waged over an extended period, as demonstrated by the examples of the Israel-Iran and Ukraine-Russia wars.
This essentially means that there is now little distinction between the frontline and the backline in such long-term conflict, and both military personnel and civilians must cooperate to defend the nation against invaders, the source added, referring to China.
The source further added that the goal of integrating the 2025 Han Kuang live-fire component with civilian defense and urban resilience exercises is to strengthen Taiwan’s defense from a whole-of-society perspective.
This year’s Han Kuang live-fire exercises will once again be unscripted, evaluating soldiers’ emergency reaction skills in round-the-clock operational circumstances. Additionally, according to reports, the July Han Kuang exercises will test Taiwanese society’s capacity to counter misinformation, resist the Chinese Communist Party’s unified front efforts, and defend the country’s vital infrastructure.
The Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of the Interior will also reportedly conduct coordinated evacuation drills at major hypermarkets for the first time as part of this year’s Han Kuang exercises.
The drills come as Beijing has ramped up military pressure on Taiwan and held multiple large-scale exercises around the island, which are often described as preparations for a blockade or invasion, and cutting off the island to prevent potential external interference.
For instance, the People’s Liberation Army launched a live-fire drill in the Taiwan Strait to simulate strikes on key ports and energy facilities earlier this year. The drills were meant to be a “serious warning and powerful containment of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces,” said a PLA statement at the time.
Furthermore, China has been expanding its military presence in the wider Indo-Pacific region, extending far beyond its coast.
In a show of power, the PLA Navy deployed both its operational aircraft carriers—Liaoning and Shandong—in the Pacific near Japan to conduct military drills. This was a first, and perhaps aimed at sending a message of deterrence to Tokyo and the US, which are expected to assist Taipei in the event of an invasion.
The upcoming Han Kuang drills, like many others hosted by Taiwan, are designed to build the capability required to counter a potential Chinese invasion.
Several military pundits have predicted that an invasion could come as early as 2027. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned at the Shangri-La dialogue last month that the Chinese military is building the capabilities to invade Taiwan and “rehearsing for the real deal.”
Incidentally, the drills are scheduled as tensions continue to escalate between the two sides, with the Chinese throwing the gauntlet against what it calls “separatism.”
Rising Tensions Between China & Taiwan
In an increasingly heated verbal sparring match, China and Taiwan have argued over their divergent historical interpretations in the past few days, with Beijing asserting that it is impossible to “invade” territory that already belongs to China.
Taiwanese President William Lai said in two speeches given since June 22 that Taiwan is “of course a country” and that China has no historical or legal claim to it. The two speeches are part of the ten-speech series on “uniting the country.”
In response, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed his alarm at Taiwan’s ruling party “doing everything they can to try to move towards Taiwan independence, which is very dangerous” in a speech to European diplomats in Beijing on June 25.
He claimed that Japan had “stolen” Taiwan and that its return to China had been agreed upon in the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Declaration, which took place before Japan’s capitulation at the end of World War II.
On the same day, an editorial published in the Chinese state-owned Global Times read: “The history of the Chinese nation can never be cut, and the sacred territory of China will never be allowed to be divided. Whether from the perspective of anthropology, history, or legal principles, and whether from the perspective of people or territory, Taiwan has been an integral part of the historical development of the Chinese nation since ancient times.”
Separately, China has vowed to respond to the island’s “technological blockades” after Taiwan banned Chinese companies, including Huawei Technologies, from developing advanced artificial intelligence (AI).
Last week, Taiwan added Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), two of China’s leaders in AI and chipmaking, to its list of entities, joining a five-year US effort to slow China’s technological rise. For the first time, Taipei has blacklisted significant Chinese corporations, preventing the island’s businesses from conducting business with the two without a license.
“We will take forceful measures to resolutely safeguard the normal order of cross-strait economic and trade exchange,” Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhu Fenglian said on June 25 at a regular briefing in Beijing.
Against that backdrop and amid rapidly rising animosity, July’s Han Kuang military drills will likely be keenly watched by China.
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