Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has taken part in a wartime command-continuity drill during the island's largest annual military exercises, travelling by armoured personnel carrier from the Presidential Office in Taipei to a protected command centre as part of preparations for a possible Chinese attack.

The late-night exercise, known as the Wan Chun drill, simulated the protection and relocation of Taiwan's president and senior officials during an emergency in which the leadership or the capital's command structure came under threat.

Lai was filmed wearing body armour and a helmet, receiving military briefings and issuing instructions after reaching the command location.

The purpose was not an evacuation from Taiwan or a rehearsal for the collapse of government.

It was a continuity-of-government exercise intended to ensure that the president, military leadership and civilian agencies could continue to make decisions if normal communications, transport routes or government buildings were disrupted.

Taiwan's Presidential Office said the drill examined command arrangements, inter-agency co-ordination and emergency-response mechanisms needed to keep the government functioning.

The exercise formed part of the 10-day Han Kuang military drills, Taiwan's annual test of its ability to respond to an invasion, blockade or other major conflict.

This year's exercise began on 5 August and is scheduled to run until 14 August.

It combines live military activity, reserve mobilisation, civil-defence preparation and tests of how the country would cope if communications and critical infrastructure were damaged.

Lai is the first known incumbent president to take part publicly in the Wan Chun exercise, although earlier Taiwanese leaders also rehearsed emergency relocation and command procedures.

The programme dates to the Cold War period and reflects a longstanding concern that an adversary might try to disable Taiwan's political and military leadership early in a conflict.

Such an operation is commonly described as a decapitation strike: an attack intended to remove or isolate senior leaders, disrupt communications and paralyse decision-making before a defending force can organise a response.

Taiwan's drill assumes that defending the island would depend not only on aircraft, ships and missiles, but also on the ability of national institutions to keep operating under pressure.

The scenario has added urgency because China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

Beijing claims the self-governed island as part of its territory despite never having governed it, while Taipei rejects that claim and says its future can be decided only by its people.

China's military has increased operations around Taiwan, including air and naval activity, coastguard patrols and other forms of pressure that fall below the threshold of open war.

These so-called grey-zone activities are a central focus of this year's Han Kuang exercise.

They can include maritime harassment, cyber operations, disinformation, administrative pressure and the use of non-military or quasi-military forces to test an opponent's readiness without formally launching an invasion.

Taiwan is using the drills to test how quickly its armed forces and civilian institutions can respond when the first warning of a crisis is unclear or fragmented.

The exercise has also shifted beyond conventional displays of weaponry.

Taiwan has mobilised large numbers of reservists to practise protecting ports, power facilities, bridges and other infrastructure that would be essential in a prolonged conflict.

Air-defence systems, including Patriot and Tien Kung missiles, have been deployed in and around Taipei, while troops have practised the defence of transport routes and urban approaches to the capital.

One prominent exercise focused on the recently opened Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River northwest of Taipei.

The bridge and surrounding river corridor could be strategically important in a conflict because the area links coastal approaches, transport networks and routes towards the capital.

Soldiers erected barriers and barbed wire to simulate delaying or blocking an opposing force's advance.

Taiwan is also testing whether its military can operate with more decentralised command.

The drills include a communication method known as backbriefing, in which junior commanders explain how they intend to carry out orders rather than simply acknowledge them.

The approach is designed to help front-line units act more independently if senior headquarters are cut off, communications fail or battlefield conditions change quickly.

For the first time, the authorities also plan to limit mobile internet capacity during part of the exercise.

The test is intended to show how government agencies, businesses and the public would communicate if bandwidth became scarce during a cyberattack, disaster or military emergency.

The measure reflects a broader recognition that Taiwan's resilience would depend on civilian communications, supply chains, emergency services and public preparedness as much as on military firepower.

The Han Kuang exercise comes as Taiwan expands defence spending and seeks to turn its military into a force better prepared for an asymmetric conflict against a far larger adversary.

That means concentrating on mobile missiles, drones, mines, air defence, coastal protection, reserve forces and the ability to survive an initial attack rather than relying solely on expensive conventional platforms.

Taiwan's security planning is closely watched in Washington, Tokyo and other Indo-Pacific capitals because a conflict across the Taiwan Strait would threaten one of the world's most important shipping lanes and place the global semiconductor supply chain at risk.

Taiwan produces a dominant share of the world's advanced chips, making the island's security a strategic economic issue as well as a military one.

The United States remains Taiwan's principal supplier of military equipment, while maintaining formal diplomatic recognition of Beijing rather than Taipei.

Washington's policy leaves open how it would respond in a war, but it treats peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait as a matter of major concern.

Taiwan has drawn on American training practices and doctrine as it reshapes its own forces, although its defence ultimately rests on its ability to sustain operations from the first hours of a crisis.

The Wan Chun drill therefore carried a message beyond the armoured convoy seen in Taipei.

It was a test of whether Taiwan's leadership can remain protected, connected and capable of directing national defence if the country faces the kind of sudden, multi-layered attack its military believes is increasingly plausible.

The remaining days of the Han Kuang exercise will continue to test that wider system of military resistance and civilian resilience.