Taiwan Mobilizes Civil society to Bolster Civil Defense

Before the committee held its first meeting behind closed doors on 26 September, President Lai in a speech promised to ‘expand the training and utilization of civilian forces’ and ‘improve the readiness of our social welfare, medical care and evacuation facilities, and ensure the protection of information, transportation and financial networks’. The committee is also looking at ways to improve food supplies and protect energy and other critical infrastructure facilities so that they keep operating during emergencies. Taiwan’s interior minister said the government had identified 310 such facilities that needed protection or duplication.

President Lai said the committee would hold tabletop exercises in December and hold an unscripted civil defense exercise in March 2025. In June it will coordinate with the military for the annual Huang Kuang Exercise, an annual drill that is supposed to show off readiness to face an attack from China.

Presence on the committee gives a platform to two private grassroots organizations that prepare Taiwanese civilians for national emergencies. Since 2022, Wu’s Forward Alliance has been working with Spirit of America, an independent American NGO that has provided aid to Ukraine in collaboration with the US Department of Defense. Spirit of America has offered instructors and other experts to help Forward Alliance train emergency first responders in Taiwan.

Forward Alliance says 19,000 people have attended its training workshops since its founding in 2020. The workshops include basic first aid, search and rescue and team-based training in managing crowd safety and people in shelters. Forward Alliance says it’s also trained more than 1300 Taiwanese law enforcement professionals in emergency casualty care and donated first aid kits to various police precincts. Taiwan’s de facto US ambassador, Raymond Greene, attended a Forward Alliance exercise on 14 September with nearly 300 participants that simulated civilian responses to a mass-casualty explosion in a rural area.

Liu Wen, chairperson of the Kuma Civil Defense Education Association, who is also on the committee, said her organization would like to train Taiwanese government officials and bring a ‘wartime consciousness’ to the committee. What Taiwan needs to overcome, she says, ‘is the ideological challenge that war preparedness is a form of provocation to China.’ Kuma trains Taiwanese in self-defense capabilities ranging from basic first aid skills to planning evacuation routes from homes and deciphering Chinese propaganda and disinformation.

Ingrid Larson, a top official with the American Institute in Taiwan, voiced support for the committee. Within Taiwan, however, Lai’s biggest challenge most likely will be winning support from the China-friendly opposition parties, the Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party. So far, they haven’t given much of a response, but they probably will be resistant and skeptical. While these parties firmly support democracy, they also support a more conciliatory approach to China and, in the past, have labelled Lai as a provocateur.

Jane Rickards, a journalist and frequent contributor to The Economist, has lived in Taiwan since 2004. This article is published courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).