August 7, 2026

What truly warrants vigilance in this year's "Han Kuang" military exercises in Taiwan is not only Lai Ching-te participating for the first time as "commander-in-chief" in the "Wan Jun" contingency drill, nor merely that the Sky Bow III surface-to-air missile system was deployed in the urban areas of Taipei for the first time on Thursday. 

More importantly, it is the broader direction revealed by the exercise: It has completely departed from the previous logic of external defense drills and has begun openly extending wartime operational systems into urban streets, embedding them into social operations and penetrating the daily lives of ordinary residents, effectively tying Taiwan society as a whole to the separatist "Taiwan independence" agenda.

From nighttime emergency relocation drills for senior officials to the operation of the Hengshan Military Command Center; from district-based evacuation and shelter exercises after air raid alarms to island-wide air defense exercises covering all 368 townships; from classified protection of key infrastructure to the inclusion of public transportation and various indoor and outdoor facilities in wartime response procedures - each of these measures, viewed separately, could perhaps be explained as "routine preparedness." But when these measures are considered together, their underlying direction becomes increasingly clear: The so-called "war plans" of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities are becoming increasingly embedded into the daily fabric of Taiwan society.

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https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202608/1367751.shtml