Overview

• Thousands of residents and motorists paused at 1:30 p.m. on July 17 as air-raid sirens directed them into underground shelters during the mandatory drill
• Participants practiced war-time aid distribution and mass-casualty response scenarios alongside the shelter rehearsals
• The civilian exercise ran alongside Taiwan’s largest-ever Han Kuang drills, which mobilized record numbers of reservists and included urban warfare and night-time metro assaults
• US-supplied Stinger missiles and mobile missile launchers were publicly deployed around Taipei as part of the show of deterrence
• Taiwan’s defense ministry reported 58 Chinese military aircraft near the island in the past 24 hours, underscoring sustained pressure from Beijing