Taiwan's Navy, Coast Guard Run First Joint Blockade Drill
Taiwan capped its Han Kuang war games with a first-ever Navy-Coast Guard anti-blockade drill moving supplies as China ran nearby exercises.
Photo by Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Taiwan closed out its 10-day, 9-night Han Kuang exercises on Aug. 14 with what its Coast Guard Administration called the first time the Navy and Coast Guard had ever run a joint anti-blockade drill, rehearsing how to keep a port supply line open while enemy forces try to disrupt it.
What the drill actually tested
The scenario Taiwan’s forces built for Aug. 14 was specific: enemy forces have infiltrated a port and are trying to disrupt the transfer of essential wartime supplies. The Navy’s Yushan-class landing platform dock, a roughly 10,000-ton, 153-meter ship built domestically by CSBC Corporation and first launched in 2021, played the role of an inbound merchant vessel approaching from waters off Taiwan’s east coast. The Navy’s Surface Action Group and light surface forces escorted it in, while the Coast Guard Administration deployed a Taichung-class patrol cutter, a Bali-class patrol vessel and two 100-tonne patrol boats alongside it. The ship offloaded its cargo at Hualien Port and Suao Port, where garrison forces, including CM21 armored vehicles and Avenger air-defense systems, along with requisitioned civilian flatbed trucks and cranes, moved the supplies inland. Taiwan’s 2nd Combat Theater Command described the goal as testing cross-branch coordination to keep wartime supply lines open through a prolonged blockade, the specific capability gap a joint drill format is meant to close: the Navy alone can escort a ship into port, and the Coast Guard alone can patrol coastal waters, but neither branch had previously proven it could hand off and jointly execute the full sequence, from open-water escort through in-port unloading to inland distribution, in a single coordinated exercise.
Why a blockade rehearsal, specifically
Taiwan is not choosing a blockade scenario at random. China has run its own port-blockade-style exercises around Taiwan since 2022, and the People’s Liberation Army operates in the skies and waters around the island on a near-daily basis, including a naval exercise it ran concurrently with Han Kuang’s conclusion this year, though the available reporting did not independently detail that concurrent PLA exercise’s specifics. A blockade is also one of the scenarios Taiwan’s own defense planners consider more plausible than an outright amphibious invasion in the near term, since it does not require China to put troops ashore to achieve significant coercive effect: cutting off a heavily trade-dependent island’s ports could pressure Taipei without a single PLA soldier crossing the strait. Rehearsing how to keep at least some port capacity functioning under that pressure, using an actual named ship class and two full agencies working together rather than a generic paper exercise, is Taiwan’s answer to that specific threat model, and it is a more concrete test of capability than the broader Han Kuang combat-readiness drills this desk has already covered this week involving Taiwan’s Abrams and M1A2T units.
China’s response
China’s Ministry of National Defense used its first official comment on this year’s Han Kuang drills to dismiss them entirely. Spokesperson Chen Xi called them “a posturing, wasteful charade” and accused Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party of “recklessly stoking war panic” and “accelerating efforts to turn cities into battlefields,” according to Reuters reporting carried by Internazionale on Aug. 14. This is a Chinese government statement, not an independently verified assessment of the drills’ actual military value, and should be read as Beijing’s political messaging rather than a neutral evaluation. No Taiwanese official was quoted by name in the available sourcing beyond institutional attributions to the Coast Guard Administration and the 2nd Combat Theater Command, and no named quote is used here that was not directly attributed in the source reporting.
What this signals going forward
A single joint drill does not by itself prove Taiwan could sustain port operations through a real, extended blockade, and nothing in the available reporting claims that it does. What it does establish is a tested procedure, a first documented instance of the Navy and Coast Guard executing the full escort-to-inland-distribution sequence together rather than in separate, uncoordinated drills. Whether that procedure gets repeated and refined in future Han Kuang iterations, and whether it expands to more ports or larger simulated enemy forces, will be the clearer signal of how seriously Taipei is treating the blockade scenario as opposed to treating this year’s drill as a one-off demonstration for Beijing’s benefit.
Sources
- Taiwan Navy, Coast Guard hold first joint anti-blockade drill — Focus Taiwan (CNA), Aug 14, 2026
- Taiwan Navy, Coast Guard hold first joint anti-blockade drill — GlobalSecurity.org, Aug 14, 2026
- Taiwan Arms Coast Guard Vessels With Anti-Ship Missiles During Han Kuang Drills Simulating China Attack — Sunday Guardian Live
- Taiwan concludes annual military exercises — Plataforma Media, Aug 14, 2026
- China calls Taiwan's annual military drills a 'wasteful charade' — Internazionale (Reuters), Aug 14, 2026
Frequently asked questions
What made this year's drill first-ever? +
It was the first time Taiwan's Navy and Coast Guard Administration jointly rehearsed keeping a port supply line open against a simulated enemy blockade and infiltration, rather than each branch drilling separately.
What is the Yushan-class ship that played the merchant ship? +
A Taiwan-built landing platform dock from CSBC Corporation, about 10,000 tons and 153 meters long, first launched in 2021 for the Republic of China Navy. Here it simulated an inbound resupply vessel needing military and Coast Guard escort.
How did China respond? +
China's Defense Ministry spokesperson Chen Xi called the drills a posturing, wasteful charade and accused Taiwan's government of stoking war panic. That is a Chinese state characterization, not an independently verified assessment of the drills' military value.
Is this part of a bigger pattern? +
Yes. It directly rehearses against blockade tactics China has demonstrated around Taiwan's ports since 2022, and follows Han Kuang's broader 2026 shift toward more realistic, whole-of-society drills, including private-sector participation such as the requisitioned trucks and cranes used in this drill.
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