Taiwan Begins Han Kuang 42 Drills to Test Invasion Response and Communications Resilience
Taiwan began the live-force phase of its Han Kuang 42 military exercises on Aug. 5, putting troops and civilian agencies through a 10-day test of responses to simulated Chinese invasion scenarios, gray-zone pressure and communications disruption.
The exercises are scheduled to continue through Aug. 14 across southern, central, eastern and northern Taiwan, as well as offshore-island areas. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense says the drills use continuous scenarios designed to test responses under realistic combat conditions.
The exercise is Taiwan’s principal annual military readiness test. Its stated purpose is to assess how military forces, government agencies and civilian systems could maintain operations during a crisis, rather than to signal that an attack is underway.
What the drills are testing
Han Kuang 42 combines military field training with civil-defense and whole-of-society resilience activities. The scenario-based format is intended to test command and control, force deployment, maneuver, logistics and the transition between military and civilian response.
A related urban-resilience exercise will simulate the disruption of mobile communications across 14 local governments. The exercise involves Taiwan’s National Communications Commission and is paired with the Han Kuang field training, according to the All-out Defense Mobilization Agency.
That communications component focuses attention on a practical problem in any crisis: whether authorities and residents can continue coordinating if mobile networks are interrupted. The approved exercise materials describe the disruption as a simulation, not as evidence of an actual network failure.
A broader scenario than a battlefield exercise
The live-force phase follows an earlier computer-assisted command-post phase conducted in 2026. That 14-day, 13-night wargame simulated gray-zone harassment, a transition from exercise conditions to war and a possible armed invasion of Taiwan.
The earlier phase emphasized decision-making under uncertainty, including command, control, force deployment and maneuver. The field exercises now extend those questions into physical movements and regional sequences, linking military readiness with civil defense and continuity planning.
Exercises are scheduled on Aug. 7 and Aug. 10-13 in sequences covering Taiwan’s southern, central, offshore-island, eastern and northern regions. The defense and mobilization agencies have published the schedule, but the official materials do not disclose every participating unit or exercise location.
Why the timing matters
For Taiwan, the drills provide a recurring test of whether its forces and public institutions can operate together under pressure. The focus on communications, logistics and civilian continuity reflects the possibility that a crisis would affect more than military positions.
The exercises also offer a public record of the contingencies Taiwan is preparing to manage. The Defense Ministry’s planning materials identify gray-zone activity and invasion as scenarios for training; they do not establish that China has launched an attack or that Taiwan expects an imminent invasion.
The Defense Ministry’s April planning materials listed Taiwan’s 2026 defense budget at NT$561.4 billion. That figure provides budgetary context for the readiness effort, but the approved sources do not identify the cost of Han Kuang 42 itself.
What happens next
The live-force exercise is scheduled to run through Aug. 14. During that period, the regional drills and the simulated mobile-network disruption exercise will continue testing how Taiwan’s military and civilian systems respond within the larger scenario.
The sources describe planned training activities and simulated conditions only. They do not report an actual Chinese military response, an ongoing invasion or a confirmed communications outage.
Sources
- Ministry of National Defense July 2026 regular press-conference reference materials, Taiwan Ministry of National Defense
- Major Exercises: All-out Defense Mobilization, Taiwan All-out Defense Mobilization Agency
- Han Kuang 42 Computer-Assisted Command Post Exercise Planning, Taiwan Ministry of National Defense
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