At a time when the situation in the Taiwan Strait is becoming increasingly tense, an unprecedented military change is quietly unfolding.
This year's "Han Kuang Military Exercise" is the first highest-level military exercise after Lai Qingde and Gu Lixiong took office as leaders and heads of defense departments in Taiwan, and it has not only attracted the attention of the world, but also buried a shocking secret.
This secret may completely change the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait and may even become a turning point in cross-strait relations. So, what kind of mystery is hidden behind this military exercise?
What role will Lai Qingde play in this? It all started with a bold decision to delegate the right to fire to the battalion and company commanders.
The implementation of this policy decision has undoubtedly brought unprecedented changes to the Taiwan military. The assumption of office by Lai Qingde and Gu Lixiong was like a strong storm that swept through every corner of the Taiwan military.
What they have brought about is not only a change in personnel, but also a subversive change in tactics, the chain of command, and even the entire concept of war.
In the past, although the Taiwan military in the Tsai Ing-wen era also shouted the slogan of asymmetrical warfare and fantasized about defeating our army in street battles, due to various political constraints, in fact rarely conducted large-scale street fighting exercises.
However, this year's "Han Kuang Military Exercise" is very different. Under the leadership of Lai Qingde and Gu Lixiong, the Taiwan army began to seriously practice street fighting and night fighting, hoping to win victory over our army in the hand-to-hand combat at night through the superiority of American-style training and equipment.
However, this is only the tip of the iceberg of change. Lai Ching-de's reform of the Taiwan military is not limited to campaign tactics. In the chain of command, he also began to make some bold attempts.
He delegated control over missile launch and other orders to the most basic company commanders, so that the company commanders of anti-aircraft missile and anti-ship missile units could give orders to lock on to targets and launch missiles as long as they judged the situation and needed without receiving orders from their superiors.
This completely decentralized command and distributed combat model is undoubtedly a huge challenge to the traditional military command system.
So, what is "situational necessity"? Lai's definition is very broad: as long as the superiors are in a state of disconnection, it is considered necessary for the situation.
This means that all grassroots units of the Taiwan military now have the ability to fire the first shot. This kind of reform has undoubtedly aggravated the danger of the situation in the Taiwan Strait and greatly increased the possibility of cross-strait misfire.
Behind this order of the Lai Ching-te authorities, in fact, there is a deep concern about the survival of the chain of command of the Taiwan military in wartime.
They are worried that once our army launches a military reunification operation, it will launch a surgical attack on all command nodes of the Taiwan military and directly destroy the command link of the Taiwan army.
In this case, the Taiwanese army is likely to abandon resistance because of the loss of command and orders. Therefore, Lai Qingde and Gu Lixiong hope that by delegating the authority to open fire, the grassroots units can continue to resist even if the senior command level fails.
But will this reform really work out as they want? The answer may not be promising. First, tensions between the top echelons of the Taiwanese military and the DPP authorities make the implementation of this reform fraught with uncertainty.
Many middle- and high-ranking commanders of the Taiwan military were skeptical of Lai's decision-making, and some even chose to disobey orders. They prefer to wait for the price in wartime and use the Taiwan army as a bargaining chip to negotiate with our army to surrender.
Second, even some grassroots commanders who are willing to implement this reform have expressed concern about the effectiveness of its implementation. They understand that once the PLA launches an operation against the Taiwan military, there is only one possibility for the Taiwan military to fail.
In such a case, the person who gave the order to open fire would bear the historical responsibility of recalcitrant resistance and could be arrested and tried for war crimes after the war. This possible historical responsibility has made no one in the Taiwan military willing to take on it.
What's more, there is a fatal flaw in this reform: the problem of identifying friend or foe. In the case of the failure of the high-level command level, it is difficult for the grassroots units to accurately judge the situation of the enemy and the enemy.
This is likely to lead to friendly forces being hit by mistake. Such a situation of indiscriminate firing will not only fail to deal an effective blow to our army, but may lead the Taiwan military itself into even greater chaos.
Therefore, although the Lai Ching-te authorities have tried to enhance the combat effectiveness of the Taiwan military through this reform, the actual effect may be counterproductive.
This reform will not only fail to enable the Taiwan military to maintain effective resistance in wartime, but may accelerate the process of its collapse. This is undoubtedly a shocking conclusion, and it is also the biggest mystery hidden behind the "Han Kuang Military Exercise."
To sum up, this year's "Han Kuang Military Exercise" is not only an ordinary military exercise, but also an important weather vane for the trend of the situation in the Taiwan Strait.
The decision made by the Lai Ching-te authorities will have a far-reaching impact on the future of Taiwan's armed forces. However, it is still unknown whether this decision will be able to enhance the combat effectiveness of the Taiwan military and resist the threat of our army as they wish.
In this era full of uncertainties, we can only wait and see how this military reform will change the fate of the Taiwan Strait.