TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Sirens wailed across Taiwan's capital Thursday (July 17) as Taipei concluded its most ambitious civil defense drill in recent memory, with high-ranking officials gathering to observe the culmination of the "2025 Urban Resilience Exercise." Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) declared the operation a success during a press briefing attended by President Lai Ching-te (賴清德), who expressed appreciation to the various central government agencies for their coordinated participation. The large-scale exercise, designed to bolster civilian preparedness for conflict-related emergencies amid heightened regional tensions, also drew the attendance of National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Minister Without Portfolio Chi Lien-cheng (季連成).
The mayor revealed that municipal authorities had broken new ground by merging traditional civil defense protocols with the longstanding Wan-an (萬安) air raid drill system, creating a more comprehensive emergency response framework. Planning for the ambitious exercise began last December, encompassing sophisticated war gaming scenarios, mass evacuation procedures, and simulations of wartime resource distribution. The operations unfolded at major urban facilities including the 15,000-capacity Taipei Arena (台北小巨蛋) and the sprawling Xinyi district campus of Chunghwa Telecom (CHT, 中華電信), Taiwan's largest telecommunications company. Chiang emphasized the deliberately unpredictable nature of the exercise, with officials responding to evolving scenarios as they would during an actual conflict.
The grounds of Zhongshan Elementary School transformed into a multi-faceted emergency operations hub where officials established field medical stations, humanitarian aid distribution points, and centers for monitoring psychological warfare threats. These activities represented the culmination of an eight-month planning process that brought together expertise from across Taiwan's security apparatus. The exercise placed particular emphasis on information security and counterintelligence capabilities. Participants responded to simulated psychological warfare campaigns and deliberately false reports about infrastructure damage directed at the Taipei Joint Command Emergency Response Center (臺北市聯合應變指揮管制中心), the nerve center of the capital's crisis management system.
"This unified response is not just about operational readiness — it is a reflection of our democratic values and our shared commitment to protect our way of life," Chiang told observers gathered at the command center. The mayor later struck a defiant tone, declaring: "We will not yield an inch of our land." The day-long exercise drew an international audience that included representatives from multiple countries and notably featured the attendance of the director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto U.S. embassy that handles Washington's unofficial diplomatic relations with Taipei in the absence of formal diplomatic ties.
