NANTOU, Taiwan – It was a nightmare scenario for Taiwan: a Chinese blockade, a strong earthquake seized on by Beijing to sow chaos, hijacked television broadcasts, sabotaged infrastructure, a run on banks, civil unrest — and then a full-scale invasion.
That was the cascading crisis presented to more than 370 government and military officials during an exercise in central Taiwan last week, part of President Lai Ching-te’s push to harden the island’s war preparedness as Chinese military pressure on the democratically governed island intensifies.
Reuters was granted rare exclusive access to the closed-door drill, the first such test of whether officials in Nantou, working with central government and military agencies, could keep the mountainous county functioning under attack.