By Yi-Chin Lee and Ann Wang
KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Taiwan's military on Thursday simulated repelling a Chinese assault from the sea, integrating shore-launched missiles and drones with fast patrol boats to stop an attempted invasion.
China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan's government says only the island's people can decide their future.
Taiwan routinely holds drills ahead
of the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins next month, though these are the first to take place in front of the media since China held its latest round of war games around the island in late December.
Any invasion of Taiwan by China would be very difficult given that the People's Liberation Army would have to first cross the Taiwan Strait and then attack the limited number of beaches on the island that would be suitable for landing their forces.
The drill, on a beach that forms part of the Zuoying naval base in the southern city of Kaohsiung, imagined a scenario where Taiwan first detected an unknown boat loitering off the coast - and then sends drones to investigate.
Taiwanese attack drones and fast, missile-armed patrol boats are then pressed into action. Snipers help pick off enemy forces and Taiwan-made anti-ship Hsiung Feng missiles take aim from concealed mobile launchers on the beach.
A Marine Corps officer, speaking while fully masked and not providing his name for security reasons, told reporters the near-shore exercise with coordinated strike missions was able to build a "kill chain and effectively execute joint interceptions."
"This demonstrated the Navy's multi-layered, multi-wave defensive combat effectiveness, as well as the Marine Corps' combat power and resilience in rapidly taking control from both the sea and the land," he added.
President Lai Ching-te's administration, as part of a defence-modernisation programme, has pushed for more combat-realistic training that relies less on set-piece performances and more on simulating actual combat.
Earlier this week, the military showed how its U.S.-made HIMARS - High Mobility Artillery Rocket System - would be used to hit the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait should Chinese forces seize them first and use them as a base to launch strikes on Taiwan proper.
The Lockheed Martin HIMARS, one of Taiwan's newest and most precise strike weapons, has been used extensively by Ukraine against Russian forces.
(Reporting by Yi-Chin Lee and Ann Wang; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
