TAIPEI, Taiwan — The Taiwan Ministry of National Defense has run its first ever war game for President Chen Shui-bian and other political leaders here to test their ability to respond to a military assault from China.

For a week in April, the president, Prime Minister Su Tseng-chang, Defense Minister Lee Jye and other Cabinet ministers wrestled with a simulated missile attack that severely damaged the island's communications. They sought continuity in government when several leaders were killed or wounded. They mobilized the armed forces to repel an amphibious invasion from the mainland.

Among the findings: Taiwan could fend off China for two weeks, despite Beijing's continuing military buildup, before Taipei would need help from the United States. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, often cited by the Bush administration as the basis for the U.S. posture on Taiwan, the U.S. would be obliged in most circumstances to come to Taiwan's aid.

"We could defend our country by ourselves for at least two weeks if we were attacked by the PRC," said Abe C. Lin, the ministry's director of strategic planning, referring to the People's Republic of China.

Bush administration officials have been in what one called "a grumpy mood" toward Taipei for what they have seen as President Chen's provocative posture toward China and Taipei's failure to complete an $18 billion arms purchase from the U.S.

Moreover, Bush administration officials have suggested the Taiwanese are unwilling to defend themselves and rely too much on the United States to prevent Taiwan from being seized by China, which claims sovereignty over the island off its southeastern coast.

When an American visitor brought up these perceptions, Lin protested: "That's not fair. It is not fair to say that we are not willing to defend ourselves." Civilian officials and military officers in the meeting vigorously agreed with Lin.

Moreover, Lin asserted, "We have never thought that we would get a free ride from the U.S. We have never planned to rely only on U.S. forces in our defense."

Lin and his colleagues pointed to the lessons learned from the war game; to Taiwan's first comprehensive national security strategy report, issued in May; to increases planned for defense spending; to forthcoming cuts in military personnel to free money for investment in weapons; and to a national mobilization law adopted in 2004.

They said, however, that Taiwan needed to "harden" more of its communications apparatus. The security report called for setting up a hot line between Taipei and Beijing to preclude miscalculation. The legislature must approve increases in defense spending from 2.4 percent of gross domestic product in 2007 to 3 percent in 2009. (U.S. defense spending is about 4 percent of GDP.) The armed forces will be reduced to 275,000 from 295,000 by 2008.

If China attacked, Lin said, "We would need to sustain ourselves politically, militarily, economically and psychologically. The psychological may be the weakest part. I wonder how much our people could suffer."

Polls suggest that Taiwanese are eager, maybe even desperate, to avoid war with China. A survey by the Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees Taiwan's relations with China, found that 88.6 percent of Taiwanese wanted the status quo to continue. Only a few chose either independence, which would provoke China into an attack, or unification with China.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawai'i has quietly strengthened U.S. military ties with Taiwan. At the same time, Adm. William Fallon, the command's leader, has been executing the Bush administration's policy of engaging China by having Chinese officers visit U.S. forces and American officers travel to China.

Retired Adm. Dennis Blair, a former Pacific commander, has come to Taiwan once a year for the past several years to offer advice on a large Taiwanese military exercise. Defense attaches at the American Institute in Taiwan, the quasi-U.S. embassy here, are serving officers now rather than retired officers on contract. Pacific Command officers regularly visit to confer with counterparts.

Even so, military officers and defense officials here expressed misgivings about the U.S. engagement with China, saying they feared the U.S. might succumb to Chinese pressure or cajolery. "We support Adm. Fallon's policy of engagement," said another admiral, "so long as it is not at our expense."

The chief spokesman for Fallon, Navy Capt. W. Jeffrey Alderson, addressed that issue. In response to a query, he said: "No one loses here. Our efforts at engagement and transparency are intended to avoid miscalculations and thus maintain peace and stability in the region."

Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia. His column appears weekly in the Sunday Focus section.