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What Do Taiwan’s People Think About Its Annual Military Exercises?

Taiwan’s Han Kuang exercises are winning public approval, despite the growing impact on civilians. Understanding is another matter.

Taiwanese soldiers during the 2026 Han Kuang exercises, Aug. 8, 2026.

Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang military exercises were difficult for ordinary citizens to ignore this year. Mobile internet was deliberately slowed for 30 minutes to simulate wartime communications disruptions. Troops barricaded Guangfu Bridge, a key route connecting New Taipei City with the capital, setting up metal barriers and barbed wire as they rehearsed stopping enemy forces from advancing into Taipei. Hospitals also practiced moving medical operations underground as part of exercises designed to keep essential services running during a conflict. These scenes showed how Taiwan’s preparations for a possible war are moving beyond conventional military exercises and increasingly into the spaces of everyday civilian life.

The shift reflects a broader change in Taiwan’s approach to defense. This year’s Han Kuang exercises placed greater emphasis on realistic wartime scenarios while more closely integrating military training with urban resilience exercises. Preparing for a potential conflict is increasingly not only a task for the armed forces, but also a challenge involving civilian infrastructure, local governments, reservists, and ordinary citizens. But as Taiwan brings society more directly into its defense preparations, a basic question becomes more important: What do Taiwanese themselves make of the country’s most important annual military exercise?

To answer this question, the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) commissioned a nationwide telephone survey shortly after this year’s exercises. Conducted by National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center from August 20 to 24, the survey interviewed 1,215 adults across Taiwan. Public satisfaction with the Han Kuang exercises reached its highest level in our survey series, yet most respondents said they knew relatively little about what the exercises actually involved. The findings suggest that as Taiwan expands whole-of-society defense, public approval and public understanding should not be treated as the same thing.

Public satisfaction with the Han Kuang exercises reached 60 percent this year, the highest level in our survey series. As shown in the chart below, satisfaction had generally hovered around 50 percent in previous surveys. It stood at 51.9 percent in 2021 and 53.6 percent in 2022, before falling to 45.5 percent in 2023. Satisfaction recovered to 51.3 percent in 2025 (there was no comparable survey in 2024) and rose further this year. The longer-term pattern has therefore fluctuated rather than followed a steady upward trend, but the 2026 result is noticeably higher than the levels recorded in previous surveys.

The figure also shows another shift. The share of respondents who did not offer a clear evaluation of the exercises – whether they chose now to answer or were unaware of the exercises at all – fell from 36.7 percent in 2021 to 25.3 percent in 2026, the lowest level in our survey series, although the decline was not consistent across years. Among those........

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