Taiwan Refuses To Be Intimidated By Beijing, Holds Its Own F-16 War Games

Making it clear that it wouldn't bow to Chinese belligerence, Taiwan held a military drill Wednesday that saw its F-16s taking to the skies. The self-ruled island nation showed its combat readiness through the three-day drill simulating a war scenario.

The exercise witnessed flight crews rushing to the ready aircraft at Taiwan's airbase at Chiayi as an alarm sounded, reported Reuters.

This comes as tension between the mainland and the democratic island hit its peak last year. China claims the island as its own and has not ruled out using military power to bring it under Beijing's control.

In its bid to intimidate the island, Chinese jets had been conducting frequent incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. The latest such incident happened on Christmas day when the People's Liberation Army sent a Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine warfare plane into Taiwan’s buffer zone.

"With the very high frequency of Communist planes entering our ADIZ, pilots from our wing are very experienced and have dealt with almost all types of their aircraft," Major Yen Hsiang-sheng was quoted by Reuters.

The drill also saw Taiwanese troops and armored vehicles being deployed for a mock urban street battle Thursday. A simulated battle saw soldiers from two platoons taking on each other from houses and sandbag barricades.

The mock drill also saw tanks rolling down. According to reports, urban warfare has become an increasingly key training subject for the military. "Any future battle to protect Taiwan will be an urban warfare," Kiwi Yang, an instructor at Army Infantry School, told reporters, noting most of Taiwan's 23 million people live in cities.

"The Chinese communist troops' battle plans will be invading and landing firstly from coastal towns, then the fighting will progress into more populated residential and commercial areas and lastly push into mountainous villages," Kiwi added.

Despite war fears, Taiwan has always stood up to Beijing. On her New Year Day speech, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen urged China to curb its "military adventurism."

"The authorities in Beijing "should stop the spread of military adventurism within their ranks. The use of military means is absolutely not an option for resolving the differences between our two sides," Tsai said in her speech.

However, Beijing responded to Tsai's statement with a warning that if Taiwan crossed any red line, it would lead to a "profound catastrophe." China also warned the U.S last week against interfering in Taiwan's issue saying, it would "face an unbearable price."