New Delhi, July 28 -- to determine whether Taiwan's arms manufacturing capacity could be scattered across the island quickly enough to deny a Chinese military operation its primary targets.

Taiwan's defence ministry confirmed Monday that it had conducted classified drills over the preceding week to test the feasibility of relocating weapons production facilities away from known factory sites in the event of a Chinese military attack. The exercise simulated conditions under which Taiwan's adversary would already have targeting data on fixed industrial sites, forcing dispersal into improvised locations, some of them civilian factories with no prior defence relationship.

It was the most explicit public acknowledgment to date that Taipei ha...