Two French-made Mirage 2000 jet fighters prepare to take off from a strip of the Jen-teh highway during a military exercise Wednesday, July 21, 2004, in Tainan, Taiwan. Taiwanese fighter jets practiced landing and taking off on the strip of highway that was temporarily closed to traffic early Wednesday - a rare drill to prepare pilots for the possible bombing of their air bases by China. (AP Photo/Hsieh Ming-tsu)
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Taiwan Prepares for Possible Air Attack
By ANNIE HUANG
Associated Press Writer
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Taiwanese fighter jets practiced landing on a highway that was temporarily closed to traffic early Wednesday, a rare drill to prepare pilots for the possible bombing of air bases by China, officials said.
The island has not held such an exercise in 26 years, and it comes as China conducts war games that Beijing's state-controlled media have said are practice for a long-threatened attack on Taiwan.
The rivals, separated since 1949, usually hold large-scale military exercises at this time of year when the weather is good in the Taiwan Strait, the 100-mile-wide body of water that separates the island from the Chinese mainland.
The drills are partly about posturing, with China trying to warn the Taiwanese against seeking a permanent split. Taiwan - which has repeatedly rebuffed Beijing's demands to unify - wants to show that it is ready to fend off any invasion.
Using the highway as a runway is part of Taiwan's series of annual war games, called the Hankuang, or Chinese Glory, said Defense Ministry spokesman Huang Shuey-sheng. Two French-made Mirage jets practiced landing, refueling, reloading and taking off on the road, he said.
One popular war scenario has China destroying Taiwan's air strips with short-range missiles and bombers. To deal with such a loss, the Taiwanese have designated several sections of highway as emergency runways.
The military began blocking off a five mile section of the freeway in southern Tainan County at 3 a.m. Wednesday. Military crews walked shoulder-to-shoulder down the highway, sweeping away stones and other debris. Helicopters were used to scare away birds that might get sucked into the jets' engines.
Shortly after dawn, the two Mirage jets touched down on the highway, and crews began servicing the aircraft. Local television covered the drill live, while a crowd of residents and military buffs watched from a distance.
Shu Hsiao-huang, an editor of the local magazine Defense International, said using the highways was a wise strategy. "With the spare runways, China would have to use up more missiles, and this would reduce our risks and increase their costs," Shu said.
On Tuesday, Taiwan's military urged the public not to worry about the large-scale military exercises China is holding this month on Dongshan Island, off China's southern coast. The military dismissed them as routine annual drills.
But China's state-controlled media have warned that one purpose of the drills was to discourage Taiwan from seeking formal independence. Some Taiwanese - especially younger residents - oppose unification with China.
A recent English-language article on the People's Daily Online Web site reported that the drills were a warning to "Taiwan Independence elements" that the Chinese military "is capable and confident in settling the Taiwan issue by military force."
© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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I love how the ChiComs say that practicing wargames to defend yourself
from an attack by the ChiComs is "discouraging to unification", well
no shit, you fucktards, you keep walking all over Democracy in Hong Kong,
and you expect the taiwanese who have a prosperous economy, a
multi party democracy, to submit meekly to you all on the basis of
some really old claims going back hundreds of years?
you china
