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TAICHUNG, Taiwan — Like many younger people here, Elsa Lin has been doing some serious soul-searching lately about what might come of her life and how she will respond if the once-unthinkable — war with China — should break out.
“My parents think it will be better for me to leave the country if the war ever takes place,” Ms. Lin said in a recent interview here. “They think if things continue to escalate, I should leave.”
But the 28-year-old has lived her nearly her whole life in Taiwan, and the island democracy that has been flourishing around her since her childhood is just too valuable to her to abandon.
“I am proud of being Taiwanese and if China attacks Taiwan just like Russia did Ukraine, I fear we would lose our freedom,” Ms. Lin told The Washington Times. “If we are attacked, I will fight. I will be volunteering to fight.”
The decision she‘s grappling with is one increasingly confronting Taiwan‘s nearly 24 million people amid Beijing’s growing threat to absorb the island democracy by any means necessary, including a potential military invasion, to force it under the control of the Communist Party-ruled government of mainland China.
The national soul-searching has intensified since August, when China dramatically expanded the scope of its military drills and missile tests near Taiwan following House Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island, an expansion of aggression many here read as a sign that Beijing is practicing to invade.
Fears that China‘s autocratic government will turn to military force have seemed all the more rational against a backdrop of violent imagery from Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine that has saturated Taiwan‘s media for the past eight months.
“After Ukraine, people’s mindset has changed,” said Betty Chen, a 40-year-old Taiwanese woman who works as an English-language translator for high-profile clients in Taipei.
“Seeing this example in Ukraine, we know that war can really happen,” said Ms. Chen. “Nobody wants war, but we cannot ignore the possibility, especially after Ukraine, I think we’ve become more and more aware of that.”
China‘s success in ratcheting up the pressure on what had been a vibrant pro-democracy independence movement in Hong Kong in recent years has added to concerns that Beijing feels increasingly emboldened to wipe out the free political society in Taiwan.
It has been a Chinese Communist Party goal to absorb Taiwan since the early 1950s, when American support helped the fleeing Kuomintang Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek find sanctuary for a government-in-exile on the island after being defeated by Mao’s Communists on the mainland. U.S. military power deterred China‘s new leaders from attacking Taiwan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping pushed the goal back into the global spotlight in recent years, warning since 2019 that Beijing could use force to dissolve Taiwan‘s democracy. The recent spike in military drills and China‘s refusal to condemn Russia’s Ukraine invasion have sparked growing concern that Mr. Xi may truly be preparing for war.
Getting ready
Most Taiwanese say they want peace with China and some say the island should avoid war at any cost. But the independence-leaning government of President Tsai Ing-wen, along with influential leaders of Taiwan‘s economy who have strong ties to both mainland China and to the United States, are now scrambling to ready the island’s citizenry for a potential invasion.
“Putting it very simply, [Chinese officials] talk about it and they practice for it and therefore the threat for Taiwan is real,” says Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.
“We sense it and we understand the urgency, and therefore we also try to prepare for the worst possible day to come,” Mr. Wu recently told foreign journalists visiting Taiwan on a program sponsored by the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“What we need to do is to make ourselves fully prepared so that whenever China thinks the conditions are right for them to attack against Taiwan, we are prepared and we are able to defend ourselves,” he said. “If you look at the Ukrainian people, their will to defend their freedom, they are truly inspirational to the Taiwanese people.”
Among the most inspired has been Taiwanese billionaire Robert Tsao, the founder of the microchip manufacturing giant United Microelectronics Corporation, who has publicly vowed to donate $100 million to bolster the island democracy’s ability to defend itself.
Mr. Tsao has said in interviews that he seeks to finance advanced drone development for Taiwan‘s military.
Some $31 million is separately being channeled into an effort to expand and improve the civilian defense force throughout Taiwanese society, funding local-level training organizations that have begun offering public courses on everything from tourniquet tying to countering Chinese disinformation operations.
However, the civilian defense training is at an early stage. It’s also unclear whether there is enough public interest for the effort to produce tens or potentially hundreds of thousands of civilian-soldiers — let alone integrate the force effectively with Taiwan‘s official military.
Military questions
The status of the island democracy’s military — and the level of public faith in it — are sensitive subjects of debate in Taiwan.
Following the August increase in Chinese military aggression, some 59% of Taiwanese said they have confidence in the ability of the national army to defend the island in the event of a Chinese attack, according to a poll by the government-connected Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
In the wake of the Pelosi visit to Taiwan, roughly 50 percent% of those polled said they believed that the United States would send troops to help Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
The poll also found that about 41% of people believe the most important way for Taiwan to protect itself is to strengthen the island’s own national defense capabilities.
The Tsai government has responded by pushing for a 14% increase in defense spending for the coming year, with line items for a “special” defense ministry fund and for new fighter jets.
While the increase would bring Taiwan‘s annual military budget to more than $19 billion, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly $230 billion mainland China had earmarked for its military in 2022.
And some Taiwan-based observers are skeptical of the island’s ability to defend itself.
“The Taiwanese military is woefully unprepared for an invasion by China,” said Wendell Minnick, a longtime Taiwan-based American journalist covering security issues in Asia.
Critics in Washington and Taipei point to the uncertain quality of Taiwan‘s soldiers compared with the battle-hardened and NATO-trained troops Ukraine has put into the field to counter Russia’s invasion over the past year.
Prior to August’s spike, the fear of an imminent Chinese invasion of Taiwan had been receding in recent years, and the mandatory term of military training and service for Taiwanese draftees fell from as long as two years to just four months.
At the same time, many of the big-ticket items on the Taiwanese Defense Ministry’s shopping list, such as next generation F-16 fighter jets from the United States, may not be deployable for years.
“It’s a popular idea for the news media that Taiwan could emulate Ukraine in the event of a Chinese invasion,” said Mr. Minnick. “But it’s not accurate.”
Sea change
But many young Taiwanese adults say there is a psychological sea change in attitudes on the island.
“The younger generation in Taiwan has more ideas about the political issues and there are more and more people who believe that we have to stand up against China [and] prepare for war,” said Cynthia Yang, a 26-year-old professional working in the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing industry.
“There are a lot of activities preparing civil defense. There are civil defense organizations already,” said Ms. Yang, who spends her off time working as the youth representative of the Taiwan United Nations Alliance, a non-government organization in Taipei whose self-described mission is to counter Chinese “bully and coercion” that has long kept the island democracy from membership at the United Nations.
The alliance operates out of a Christian church in Taipei that hosts civilian defense training sessions.
Ms. Yang reflected that many people here don’t want to openly declare Taiwan as an independent, sovereign nation because they fear it will trigger a severe backlash from China.
“They are afraid of invasion from China,” she said. “They are afraid it would trigger the war directly, because that’s what the Chinese government has been saying, … that [Beijing] will use all means to prevent Taiwan from declaring independence.”
Ms. Yang, Ms. Lin and others say they and the rising generation of Taiwanese represent a new kind of thinking about the island’s future.
“Among my friends who have a bit more education, we have a little more time to pay attention to the international situation and politics,” said Ms. Lin, who apart from a year spent studying in Europe during college has lived her whole life in Taiwan, coming of age as political liberties flourished on the island following the first democratic presidential elections in 1996.
“Some of Taiwan‘s citizens think politics are not important — that it’s better to just live your stable life, just work and earn money,” Ms. Lin said. “But from what I know, my friends, we want a little bit more than that. We want our freedom. We know that it is important and it is special.”
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