NANTOU, Taiwan ¨C 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 ¡ª 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.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.