Taiwan’s new military drill to counter China

Taiwan's military has announced a series of newly designed large-scale military drills for this year aimed at countering China's renewed threat to use force to gain control over the island.

While Taiwan's armed forces regularly hold such exercises, this year's drills announced on Wednesday are "being drafted based on newly adopted tactics for defending against a possible Chinese invasion", the official Central News Agency quoted defence ministry planning chief Major-General Yeh Kuo-hui as saying, reports aljazeera.com.

China claims sovereignty over the self-governing island, which split from the mainland amid civil war in 1949.

Chinese President Xi Jinping renewed the threat of force in his January 2 message to the island, saying China reserved the right if necessary to counter interference by external forces - and what he called an extremely small number of Taiwanese separatists.

Although Xi didn't mention the United States by name, Washington is a key supplier of weaponry to the island and is legally bound to respond to threats against Taiwan.

With its three million-member armed forces and the world's second largest defence budget of $173 billion, China has an overwhelming military edge over Taiwan.

Xi has been ratcheting up the military threat to put pressure on independence-leaning Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. 

Tsai responded to Xi's speech by rejecting demands for unification between the sides saying, "China must face the fact of the existence of Taiwan."

Taiwan wields a much smaller but technologically sophisticated force that would be relied on to hold off a Chinese assault until outside help arrives.

In recent years, Taiwan's strategy has evolved from defeating a Chinese landing force to repelling an air and sea invasion.