How Taiwan's troops are training to fight China in ordinary neighborhoods and city centers

Taiwan's Han Kuang exercises are carried out right in the middle of neighborhoods and city streets.

Ann Wang/REUTERS

TAIPEI — Phone in hand, the middle-aged woman gestured to the Taipei intersection, where an infantry platoon unloaded sandbags on the pedestrian crossings."My Uber is waiting for me just there," she said in Mandarin, pointing behind them. The bespectacled military policeman blocking her path with a T112 assault rifle apologized: She'd have to find another way around.Soon after, Clouded Leopard infantry fighting vehicles emerged between the shophouses, opening fire with blanks into a killbox the Taiwanese formed with barricades. Military police covered the roads with smoke grenades, several leapfrogging through the streets under covering fire to regroup with the main force.The drill, a simulation of a bridge defense against Chinese forces, was held after midnight to minimize disruption to the capital's Wanhua cultural district. But with much of Taiwan's Han Kuang exercise conducted in the bustle of its cities and neighborhoods, it's clear the military wants to train its troops on the very streets they're assigned to defend — while still letting the rest of the island go about its business.