Is Taiwan Prepared for an Attack by China?

Deanna Lee

Hey, it’s Deanna. Before we get started, you should know that we recorded this episode before Super Typhoon Ragasa hit Taiwan last week. Our guests do briefly discuss how civilian resilience can be helpful in natural disasters, but the focus of this conversation is resilience to aggression by China, not natural disasters.

Also, we recorded before the recent executive order authorizing the use of “Department of War” as a secondary name for the U.S. Department of Defense. So… if you hear “Department of Defense” on this episode but not “Department of War” … that’s why.

Okay. Here’s the show.

You're listening to Policy Minded, a podcast by RAND. I'm Deanna Lee. Taiwan faces an existential threat from China. Is the island prepared for an act of war by Beijing? RAND researchers Marta Kepe and Scott Harold tackled this question in a recent study, looking closely at Taiwan's civilian resilience.

Their research included interviews with dozens of government officials, civic leaders, and other experts from Taiwan, the United States, and Europe. We're happy to have Marta and Scott here with us today to discuss their findings. Scott, welcome.

Scott Harold

Thank you.

Deanna Lee

Marta, thanks for being here.

Marta Kepe

Thank you for having me.

Deanna Lee

Before we get started, let's hear from each of you a little bit about what brought you to RAND and why you study this topic.

Marta Kepe

I started studying the intersection of civilian and military capabilities about eight or nine years ago, and it started really with the fact that there was a lot of interest in the defense of the Baltic states, which is where I am from originally. I was really inspired by my own experience. I, as a child, experienced firsthand the Baltic Way, the Singing Revolution, and also the barricades. So these were key events in the history of Latvia as it was regaining its independence. And it served as a personal, but also professional inspiration, then I continued to look into how civilians support or can support national defense and security, not only in the Baltic states, but also elsewhere. So since then, I worked on the Baltics, I worked on Nordics and many other case studies. And most recently me and Scott Harold, we co-authored the report on Taiwan.

Scott Harold

Yeah, so I have had the privilege to learn Chinese and spend my life working on the study of China and East Asia. I started learning Chinese when I was 12 in the late 80s, traveled to Taiwan first in 2000 and kind of fell in love with it and have been going back ever since. Of course, this is widely regarded as the pacing scenario for the Department of Defense. The risk of a China attack on Taiwan is a critical question for U.S., Indo-Pacific and global security and it's also a topic I've had the opportunity to teach on at Georgetown and at Columbia University and here at RAND. So it's something I'm quite passionate about and have been working on for a long time. And I'm grateful to Marta for giving me the chance to work with her on this specific angle of the topic.

Deanna Lee

Before we dive into the findings from the research we're going to discuss today, let's take a step back and talk about the situation between Taiwan and China. How would you describe cross-strait relations in recent years? What's the status?

Scott Harold

So I'll handle that one as the regional specialist, and Marta is kind of the functional expert. So in 2016, Taiwan elected the Democratic Progressive Party, a party that does not necessarily share China's view that Taiwan is part of China. The Democratic Progressive Party's view is that Taiwan has its own history, its own language, and it's own separate political system that China does not have a right to claim and to absorb coercively or even through outright use of force. Since that time, China has sought to put enormous pressure on Taiwan, stripping away about a third of its diplomatic partners, reducing that number down to around 12 countries around the world today that formally extend diplomatic recognition to Taiwan as the Republic of China, which is its historical name as the Nationalist Party came over from China to Taiwan in 1947 and carried forward that legacy. However, later Taiwan democratized and the Democratic Progressive Party took power in 2000 to 2008 and again since 2016. Because of that difference of opinion about whether or not Taiwan's identity should matter for China's claims to it, China refuses to engage with the DPP administration. And the DPP was re-elected for a third term in 2024 under a new president, William Lai. China has put more and more pressure on Taiwan over the last decade, and as a consequence, Taiwan, seeing what is happening in Eastern Europe and recognizing that China's pressure campaign is getting stronger and stronger, has begun making preparations to strengthen its own ability to resist, including its ability to resist through societal resilience, which is something that Marta can talk to.

Deanna Lee

Go ahead, Marta.

Marta Kepe

Let me situate this conversation within the national resilience building landscape. We are at a time when many countries, mostly the frontline countries in Europe, have adapted or are modernizing their comprehensive or whole of societal approach to national defense and security. Civilian capabilities lie at the heart of this whole of societal approach to national defense. And building them requires peacetime preparations. So examples of these countries include Finland, Sweden, the three Baltic states, for example. Taiwan is therefore not alone in its adaptation of whole-of-societal resilience, but it is one of the most recent additions to this increasing list of countries that seek to build comprehensive resilience, so resilience that involves all elements of its civil society, not only for natural and man-made hazards, but also for military conflict, acts of war. It is also quite unique because it is an island nation. The geography makes it quite an unusual example. So while other countries such as Finland, for example, or Israel may have supply chain difficulties because of their geographic location, in the case of Taiwan, the ability for the country to receive aid, to receive resupplies, in the case a quarantine, blockade, or otherwise undermined supply lines is even more difficult.

Deanna Lee

And can you tell us a little bit more for our listeners about what a quarantine or a blockade by China actually looks like?

Scott Harold

Sure, I can handle that. So the differences between a quarantine and a blockade start with a question of whether or not China is seeking to use what are notionally maritime law enforcement capabilities, like the Coast Guard, the China Coast Guard. Or if they are trying to use the People's Liberation Army Navy. So a quarantine works to China's advantage by seeking to suggest that it is simply exercising legal control over access to Taiwan and it's using its notionally civilian assets, although to be clear the China Coast Guard falls under the People's Armed Police and is in fact part of the PLA. However, the public reception to that internationally might look like, oh China is simply worrying about what sorts of assets are going into Taiwan and is seeking to divert those first to a coastal station like Shanghai or another coastal city for inspection. It allows China to engage in what is essentially lawfare, a way to put the onus on the other side to escalate. It would look bad, for example, if Taiwan's military or the U.S. Navy were to fire upon a Chinese Coast Guard vessel. By contrast, a blockade is officially an act of war. It would be executed probably holistically, meaning not only the PLA Navy, but also probably the PLA Air Force, the PLA Army, PLA Rocket Force, all aspects of China's military would be involved, including probably the China Coast Guard too. And it would be explicitly designed to prevent anything from going into Taiwan, whereas a quarantine might say, look, you can ship everything through Shanghai, it'll be inspected, and then if there's no weapons, or if there is no energy, or if is no other assets that they are looking to prevent from getting into Taiwan, then sure, it's free to go in. So this is kind of a question of whether or not China wants to play a more or less escalatory role. Many observers, including recent RAND studies, have highlighted some of the benefits to China, if it were to seek to take an approach based on a quarantine, because of the difficulty for the Taiwan government, the United States, and its other allies and partners that care about Taiwan's security in responding in a way that doesn't make it look as if we are the ones escalating.

Deanna Lee

Okay, you've painted a picture of a blockade scenario and a quarantine scenario, what that might look like. You examined seven different areas of civilian resilience, correct? Can you just give us a quick overview of what those areas are?

Marta Kepe

That's right. So we started our study by defining the key elements of national resilience based on how resilience and related national security approaches are treated and conceptualized in such countries of Finland, Sweden, the Baltic States, Israel, but also organizations such as NATO and the EU. So these are organizations and countries that are viewed as leaders in the whole societal approaches to defense. And we also integrated Taiwan's own resilience categories. Our seven civilian resilience areas are psychological resilience and societal cohesion, health and welfare, critical infrastructure and vital services, continuity of government and governance, transportation and mobility, food and water, and external networks. For the purposes of our work, we applied quite a tightly-scoped definition of resilience. It is understood as civilian society's ability to anticipate, prepare, mitigate, and survive an act of war and build following the end of the hostilities. For us, civilian resilience is about the population skills and resources needed to survive a military aggression. We defined civilian resilience in this manner to understand and analyze Taiwan's preparedness against these acts of war and military threats, but we did not define one or two specific military scenarios. Why is civilian resilience important? This is about civilian ability to survive, ensure the state continues to function, so the government governs. Vital services are still available to those in need. Food and water is still available, even if it is rationed. The ongoing war in Ukraine, for example, is a reminder that even when a country is at war, large parts of the country and the population still need to function. People need to go to work. Children need to to school. Everyone needs electricity, internet and roads. In war, civilian resilience is a core component of national security and defense. It may help maintain societal cohesion and morale, reduce civilian suffering, and help with the prioritization of scarce resources between humanitarian efforts and the military defense effort. And it might make the country less susceptible to coercion as a result of the population's suffering. So, peacetime civilian resilience preparations may, in fact, have a deterrent effect, or at least it may help undermine the potential adversary's preparation of the battlefield. And in the case at Taiwan, and I think Scott can also talk more about it, civilian resilience preparations may reduce the threats posed by the PRC. These threats can be graze on, these threats can also be more overtly military threats. In the end, civilian resilience can offer something very important on a strategic level. They can offer Taiwan's senior decision makers more room for maneuver.

Scott Harold

So just to build on those excellent points Marta made, Deanna, I think it's important to say that if we look at the cross-strait situation, it's quite clear that China, which has long practiced a form of narrative warfare and psychological warfare, seeks to convince people in Taiwan and audiences around the world that Taiwan's situation is hopeless. And therefore that China can win without fighting or win at a much lower cost if it can convince the Taiwan population to cave in, quit, capitulate, and even begin working with the Chinese side. And so part of what the whole-of-societal resilience effort that Taiwan is pursuing is about is trying to instill a sense of hope and confidence in Taiwan society. China wants to have to only fight the Taiwan armed forces and possibly the U.S. military. But if it has to fight Taiwan's 24 million person society, that's a much, much more difficult problem set for them. As we in the United States have seen, even a superpower with the assets the United States brings to bear can be frustrated in its attempt to impose a political solution, favorable to it, on a country of 24 million, whether Afghanistan or Iraq. Taiwan, also a country with 24 million people, roughly, has the ability to resist China much more substantially if it can stockpile food and water, fuel, energy reserves, medical supplies, communications resiliency, and build up its confidence and morale. I think it's important to say one additional word about how we defined resilience, and that is that in this study, we are looking at Taiwan's society's ability to survive under Chinese assault. What we did not look at was Taiwan's society's ability to actively participate in an armed resistance to Chinese aggression. So, for example, while in Ukraine and elsewhere, you might say that their efforts to arm society to prepare the battle space for even a possible land invasion to engage in street-to-street combat. Our study did not look at that. Now that could conceivably happen in Taiwan, but I think it's important for our listeners to know that Taiwan's society does not have widespread possession of personal firearms. So the military in Taiwan, of course, has arms. The police in Taiwan have firearms. Illegal actors like mafia groups and criminal organizations also possess weapons. And then there are a small number of .22 caliber hunting rifles owned by some members of aboriginal groups. However, other than that, access to firearms is incredibly strictly controlled and Taiwan civil society groups who are interested in trying to train for how they might contribute to an active military situation, what they might be able to do that could actually affect the outcome of a fight other than simply stockpile food and live, have been undertaking air gun training. But of course, air gun training is quite different than actual combat preparations. You have had small numbers of relatively wealthy and very motivated individuals actually leaving Taiwan to go abroad so that they can train in the use of firearms. But obviously that is not a long-term substantial contribution or a model that could be used. So I just think it's important for our listeners to understand the current state of resilience and then its adjacent term—resistance—in Taiwan and how the prospects for that look based on the absence of widespread firearms.

Deanna Lee

So you've laid out sort of what successful resilience looks like. Let's talk about what Taiwan is doing well right now and what else they can do or perhaps what their vulnerabilities are. What are Taiwan's greatest strengths when it comes to civilian resilience?

Scott Harold

I'll speak to this, but then I think Marta probably also has a lot to add, including because I think she's been there more recently than I have, maybe even two times since we went. First, I think it's important to say that Taiwan's greatest asset is its people. Taiwan's society has endured military dictatorship under the Kuomintang, the nationalist party that came over from China to Taiwan after 1945 and imposed martial law from 1947 to 1987, so 40 years. They have worked together to build an open, inclusive, and democratic rule of law society where despite political differences, which are often strongly held, Taiwan's institutions of governance are largely resilient. Not perfect, certainly could be even more resilient, however, very strong. Second, I think that you have a very substantial element of Taiwan civil society that is actively looking at how they can enhance their own readiness for any eventuality. And I think it's important to say that Taiwan's approach to building societal resilience right now has started from the fact that not only is Taiwan menaced by China and the People's Liberation Army, but Taiwan also faces very substantial challenges from mother nature, whether in the form of typhoons or earthquakes or pandemics, most of which recently have originated from China, not only the COVID-19 pandemic, but the SARS pandemic of 2000, of the early 2000s. So Taiwan's civil society has begun doing a number of things, including training on weekends and in the evenings for things like how do you stop bleeding in a dangerous situation where someone has been grievously wounded? How can you be more physically ready so that you can carry someone away from the battlefield? How can you recognize different types of infiltration or different types of activities that might be threatening and perhaps report those to the authorities in Taiwan. And build up stockpiles of food and fuel and other necessary items that people will need for daily life. If you want to talk about what are some of the areas where Taiwan has a lot more work to do, and I think it's fair to say that Taiwan does have a lot of work to do, most countries do. This is an entire, it's every aspect of life that you need to be more resilient for. I think that Taiwan is still in the phase of growing its awareness of this problem and responding to it. Most people, I believe, are still not yet in a place where they have stockpiled substantial food, fuel, nor do they probably have a plan for "what do we do if it's not an earthquake or a storm that will blow by in a day or two, what if it is a weeks to months to even conceivably, as the Ukraine example shows, years long, assault, military assault on our society by our powerful neighbor who aspires to absorb us by force?" that I think it's fair to say Taiwan has a lot of work yet to do. Where Taiwan's greatest challenge lies, I believe we found, although Marta if I'm missing it please correct me, I think we found the greatest challenge is that the politics of Taiwan do not yet fully support a cross-party consensus on the importance of national resilience and resilience building. We have seen the parties that lead the legislative assembly characterize efforts to build up national resilience as preparations for the ruling party to declare independence, which might then lead to war. And so they have resisted and criticized and condemned some of the efforts to build resilience. Whereas the ruling party thinks that building resilience is a desperately important issue, they too have only come to that position fairly recently. There were some early steps in the early 2020s, but really it's been since last summer that the government of Taiwan has wholeheartedly embraced and sought to push forward on this. That's only a few of our insights, I'll turn to my co-author now to share some additional thoughts.

Marta Kepe

I think Scott already mentioned some of the really important strengths that Taiwan has, right? Active civil society, absolutely an important element. We've learned that also from other case studies from Ukraine, where we really see how important a proactive and prepared civil society can be. There are numerous non-government organizations in Taiwan that offer training courses for civilian individuals, for employees of different companies, and work with religious organizations to help people be better prepared to understand how they can stockpile things at home, but also offer courses starting from first aid to disinformation awareness to a more deeper, more extensive first aid and preparedness classes as well. And those training classes are available from children all the way to adults and retired people. Another strength, I actually see that the high-level interest in the whole-of-societal resilience that we have in Taiwan is another strength. That is an important building block, and we should not forget that we do need a concentrated, a purposeful effort that is also top-down to make sure that preparedness, resilience-building efforts are planned, are comprehensive, and are well-funded. That is where Taiwan does have problems and Scott already really talked more detail about the political issues, the politicization of resilience agenda itself. However, we do have two elements. One is the bottom up and the other one is the top down elements. Now it's time for them to actually meet. Another element that I do want to mention is that despite the fact that Taiwan's diplomatic representation across the world is stunted, it in fact is very, very active in terms of its engagements with other countries. It is actively meeting with experts and practitioners and analysts across the world to learn lessons on resilience and how to do better, what lessons they can learn across the seven resilience areas that we have defined. So it's not just high level resilience building on a national level, it's really going into the details of every aspect, so, how do you build food resilience, water storage? How to do better communications, more redundant communications and critical infrastructure, and also learning lessons on things, for example, like healthcare and medical care in military crises. I think that's a very important aspect. A lot of work is being done there, but what I would like to see is that these lessons are actually trickling to the relevant experts, municipalities, tactical-level people who actually work on these issues in Taiwan.

Scott Harold

In addition to Taiwan's civil society and the Taiwan government reaching out to learn lessons from abroad, from experiences overseas, it's also important to recognize that Taiwan does enjoy very substantial support from its international diaspora, including Taiwanese communities in the United States and elsewhere in North America, across the Indo-Pacific, in Europe and elsewhere. And those individuals and some of those groups offer Taiwan an opportunity to remain in contact with the world even in a crisis and to present Taiwan's voice and opinions and views on what's happening, including if China were to launch some form of aggression against Taiwan and to get Taiwan's story out there. Taiwan also enjoys substantial support from the United States and a host of other countries, some of which have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, many of which have informal but even more meaningful and substantial contact with Taiwan and would likely be part of any response to a Chinese assault on the island.

Deanna Lee

So let's talk a little bit more about the potential role of the U.S. here. There's a lot of discussion about what the United States may or may not do in the event of an attack by China against Taiwan. But what might the U.S. role be specifically as it pertains to civilian resilience and the others in the international community as well?

Marta Kepe

From my perspective as a resilience analyst, the way I see the U.S. role in terms of Taiwan learning and building its capabilities is very much as a coordinator and as an actor that helps prioritize the lessons and apply or let's say localize or adjust them to the unique circumstances of Taiwan. Why is that? This answer is actually inspired by my previous work when I did a lot of work on defense sector reform in different countries that were going through active defense and security sector reforms. And what we often see in countries that are trying to build a new, maybe a new institution, change their systems, is that you may get a lot advice, but sometimes, or actually more often than not, There's a lot of conflicting advice. A lot of conflicting opinions on how things should be set up, how they should be implemented, how they should be funded, who should do what. And that can be counterproductive and, in fact, prevent the development of resilience. So I think the United States is in a good position of, let's say, being an actor that helps figure out which lessons could be applied and how. And how they could, in fact, be merged together for the benefit of what Taiwan is trying to do.

Scott Harold

I'll just add to that by saying, Taiwan is a rich country, and Taiwan's own senior officials, when we spoke with them, said, look, we're not in a position where we're asking for anything at this time, and we may not ask for anything at any point in time, physical, at least. I do think, however, that in talking with them and with others in Taiwan, as well with experts here in the United States, a few potential areas did emerge where U.S. policymakers and U.S. policy could help affect an outcome where Taiwan becomes even more resilient. So first, we mentioned already the deep societal divisions or deep political divisions. I should say it's deep political division, it's not necessarily deep societal divisions. I think there's a difference there and in fact we heard that expressly from a number of different interlocutors in Taiwan. The government of the United States through its unofficial representatives in the American Institute in Taiwan can provide some measure of political top cover for the government of Taiwan and the opposition parties in Taiwan to come together on this issue by pointing out, as Marta already noted, that this is not a Taiwan-only issue. This is not something Taiwan is doing—if it does do it—that would be provocative or in some way untoward toward the cross-strait relationship. In fact, as Marta noted correctly and as many of our Taiwan interlocutors saw it also, this is a global trend that many frontline states, whether in Ukraine or the Middle East or elsewhere in Europe or elsewhere in Asia are undertaking to become more resilient and able to resist and determine their own fate, to become more autonomous, to become more capable of ensuring their own security. And so what that means in terms of specifics could be additional public presentations by the AIT representative in Taipei to Taiwan's media about the importance in the U.S. view of cross-party cooperation on societal resilience. It could mean arranging additional contacts for Taiwan officials with their foreign counterparts, perhaps through the Global Cooperation and Training Framework, which is a framework that the U.S. uses to engage with Taiwan and other countries, including Canada, Australia, Japan, and others. It could meaning arranging additional venues such as in Europe or in Hawaii, where we have already seen the U.S. Department of Defense arrange conferences focused on the issue of societal resilience that we have invited Taiwan officials to participate in so that they can help sensitize European friends and partners to the challenges Taiwan faces and help provide Taiwan with access to the insights that European actors have generated through their own preparations for these threats. And finally, it could conceivably at some point down the road require the United States to help Taiwan access some degree of technology in a couple of key areas. One is the ability to monitor, defend, and repair submarine cables that carry most of the bulk communications from Taiwan to the world and from the world to Taiwan. And second, to help Taiwan acquire some technology solutions for Low Earth Orbit satellite infrastructure so as to maintain connected to the world through satellite communications in a crisis. At present, Starlink is not a provider to the government of Taiwan. Taiwan has used a British company, but the number of satellites they're looking at fielding is probably vulnerable to Chinese disruption and may not be sufficient for Taiwan's needs. So some officials we talked to said, look, not now but at some point in the future, we might welcome assistance trying to get our arms around that particular dimension of the problem.

Deanna Lee

You mentioned that these efforts would not be seen as provocative?

Scott Harold

When I said that the U.S. could provide political top cover to Taiwan's government and its opposition parties so that preparations for societal resilience would not be seen as provocative, what I mean is that so that actors inside Taiwan's polity, inside Taiwan society, understand that they have a right to stockpile food, fuel, medical equipment, and that it is not provocative. Another interpretation of that would be to say, are you saying that China will not see it as provocative? And I think it's important for our listeners to be clear. China will characterize anything that complicates its ability to coerce Taiwan and compel its unification on terms set by Beijing as provocative. That doesn't mean that the rest of us need to accept Beijing's characterization, But there's nothing the United States can do vis-à-vis Taiwan apart from abandon it and help China conquer it, that China will not characterize as provocative. And we should not allow China to, in any way, define the mental parameters of our policy space by worrying about whether China will regard it as provocative, and that's not to say we should have zero concern for China's reaction to certain things. There are certainly steps the United States policymakers could take that would actually be more or less provocative. This falls on the low end of the spectrum. In other words, if the United States helps Taiwan stockpile fuel or food, that's not a casus belli. That's not going to be something that China says, well, that's it, we're launching a war.

Deanna Lee

Sure. So the risk of antagonizing China is always there and something the U.S. is keenly aware of. Okay, let's talk about your primary recommendations from this study. What are the key things that Taiwan can do to further build its resilience?

Marta Kepe

As I was thinking about this question, three things came to my mind that Taiwan should really focus on, and at first they will seem a little bit vague, but let me explain them. These three things are, one, preparedness mindset, two, preparedness training, and three, preparedness capabilities. We need all of these three things across the seven functional areas that we define in our work, which are psychological resilience and societal cohesion, health and welfare, critical infrastructure and vital services, continuity of government and governance, transport and mobility, food and water, and external networks. You didn't notice cyber mentioned in any of them because cyber is a cross-cutting issue across all of them. Preparing this mindset is very important. We could even say that it is at the heart of resilience building, because resilience starts with an individual. Resilience starts with the will and the conviction that you need a change, you need to be more resilient. How can we do that? One is work on the societal cohesion element on the politicization problem that we already discussed previously. But there are other things that we see that other countries have done. For example, making preparedness fashionable and cool, making it prestigious so that when you're prepared, you get the reward for it. It's a great thing to do or to be. Preparedness building also overlaps with disaster preparedness. Everyone wants better roads, everyone wants to have drinking water when there's a typhoon or hurricane, everyone wants to have pharmaceutical products when they're ill. It's part of resilience building, no matter what the threat is. Two is preparedness training, again, cross-cutting across all seven areas. Taiwan needs to invest in training, in training their civilians, so giving them basic preparedness, survival skills, but also working with the leaders of their private businesses, public institutions to give them crisis management skills. So create an integrated structure where people know what to do, when people know how to guide their families, their employees in the case of a crisis. They know what their role is. And three is preparedness capabilities. This is the stuff that we need. These are the shelters that are well-designed and prepared for an attack, that are stocked with food, water. These are the energy network repair capabilities. These are the blood supplies. These are the pharmaceutical products and many other materials that you may need to respond to emergencies, to help people. Also to make sure that you have food or you can grow food if you need to do so. So this needs both people's will and interest, it needs political support, but it also needs investment. And that investment needs to come both from government funders, but it's also needs to from private and NGOs because this is really a two-way street. And resilience is a thing that needs to be embedded in absolutely all areas and domains. So these are some of the sort of big, broad topics. There are definitely areas that I would like to focus on, things like energy resilience and communication lines. So it is well known that Taiwan is incredibly dependent on energy imports. That exposes it to attacks on its energy pipelines. It also exposes it to attacks on its underwater communication lines, right? However, when I talk about energy and communications resilience, I don't only talk about the external networks off island. I also talk about networks and in case of energy, for example, storage on the island. Taiwan's energy storage reservoirs and tanks are in fact above ground or often semi-buried, which means that they are exposed to potential air raids or sabotage attempts. So a lot of work needs to be done in terms of hardening Taiwan's infrastructure on land when we want to develop this sort of, really, resilience and strengths within the island as well. And a couple of other things from my perspective is Taiwan does have a declared very large number of shelters, however, there's a big problem with these shelters. A lot of them are not, in fact, accessible, so you have a sign on the street, here is an air raid shelter, but in fact, you can't even get into it. And many of them are not, in fact, designed for air raids. They're designed for other types of threats and crises. And an additional important aspect is also medical and health care issues. So here, Taiwan is already, in fact, working, but more work needs to be done on reducing its dependence on the import of pharmaceutical products and ensuring that it has enough supplies of various medical materials that would be needed in case there's a surge in need. And also issues such as blood supply, we discussed that issue in detail in our report too.

Scott Harold

I'll pick up and make a few additional points if I can, you know, Marta has already covered very well a number of the very granular and specific areas where Taiwan needs to build up stockpiles. And I think she very importantly highlighted the training aspect of that. In other words, just having things but not really knowing what you're going to do in a crisis is probably not enough. One of the things that we heard regularly was that the government of Taiwan doesn't really have a plan for how to incorporate society yet. And I think they're working toward that now. I think we heard it both from the government itself and from actors in Taiwan society, including individuals who said, you know, I may be going to classes and learning about how to, you know put compression on a wound. I may training on the weekends to be more physically strong and resilient. I may be interested in learning about how to identify disinformation and keep my community safe, but I don't know how the government plans to incorporate any of the skills I'm acquiring or how the group that I participate in on the weekends might be leveraged or maximally used most efficiently in a crisis. So I think what we're looking at is a situation where the government of Taiwan is evolving towards a more formal plan. Their thinking is unfolding in real time. Taiwan has long had a serious problem with continuity of government and one of the ways that China might seek to destroy Taiwan society's ability to survive and be resilient would be if they communicated via China's own messaging to Taiwan that in a crisis or a conflict that look either your government has fled or collapsed or we have killed them, you're leaderless. And so continuity of government and an ability for Taiwan's government to continue messaging Taiwan society that "We're still in the fight, we're with you, we have not fled, we will not flee, we have died, we are not dead," is probably an issue. Another part of this is working within and across the government, many ministries who we talked to said, look, we're the ministry of XYZ. Our job is not national defense. Our job has never been to think about how a China attack on our physical ministry building or our ministry personnel or our sector and our issue areas would unfold. We don't have a plan for what we do. We don't have information and intelligence about how China might target a ministry of health, a ministry of the economy, a ministry of transportation. So, trying to help sensitize the government of Taiwan's various ministries and departments and agencies to the challenge, the threat and their role in a response has been an important part of the Taiwan interagency led by the National Security Council and the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee. And as we know, here at RAND, we also learn a lot from playing tabletop exercises or TTXs. Taiwan's government has held their own tabletop exercises over the last almost one year. And has begun communicating the lessons that they've found out across the various ministries, departments and agencies and to Taiwan's society so that as they craft the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee's plans for how they would respond, those plans are effectively and clearly communicated to Taiwan's society so you have a more integrated or whole-of-nation, whole-of-society response.

Deanna Lee

We've covered a lot of ground and you two, I'm sure have hit on these points already, but I want to close by asking you what the priority should be for Taiwan? If Taiwan could only do one thing to enhance its resilience, in your view, what should that be?

Marta Kepe

For me, I can't give you one single thing to work on, but I keep going back to my three areas that really make resilience tick. Mindset, training, and capabilities. You can only do that much with only one of them. You can't do much with all the preparedness mindset if you don't have training, if you do not have capabilities. Capabilities are useless if you don't know or you don't want to do anything with them. So I think this is almost like a step-by-step process, maybe preparedness mindset, training capabilities, all in one, that is the thing that Taiwan needs to focus on.

Scott Harold

No surprise, you scratch two RAND researchers, you find two probably, hopefully equally, although Marta's ideas may be even better than mine, but two equally intriguing answers. I wouldn't disagree with anything my colleague shared there. I think my answer might be slightly different, though. I would say, and maybe not that different, awareness of the problem and preparation for it in advance. But also, a political consensus that this is in fact something that behooves Taiwan society to get after. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," I think Lincoln said, and that is certainly China's goal, right? If China can induce doubt in Taiwan society, make members of Taiwan society think, I'm not sure I can trust my neighbor. Maybe my neighbor will work for the other side. Maybe it is truly hopeless. Maybe I should quit or flee or in fact begin working for China so as to cut a better deal. That will do more to undermine Taiwan's ability to resist than anything China could do in the military domain. On the contrary, if Taiwan's political parties can certainly not set aside their differences, they're going to have different perspectives on a number of issues. But remember that they are all the members of Taiwan's 24 million person society who treasure the way of life that Taiwan enjoys and who do not want to live under a one-party communist dictatorship led by Beijing, where they will be marginal and have no voice. That gives them much more in common with each other than what divides them. And that I think would be a useful addition to the very wise recommendations that my colleague made.

Deanna Lee

I'm glad you returned to this idea of political divisions in Taiwan and how much of a challenge that is. And Marta, earlier you talked about the top down versus the bottom up approach and how important that is for those two to come together. Maybe we haven't talked as much about morale in Taiwan? What is the public sentiment around this idea of resisting China and civilian resilience? Are they broadly on board?

Marta Kepe

It is my perception. That in Taiwan, a key problem is really having a unified understanding of threat. And that is where the problems come from. The understanding of what Taiwan's relations with China should be or could be is different across the society. And that affects how China is perceived. And that also affects how resilience is perceived. And to what extent people want or think it's useful to prepare for a potential war or military aggression if your likely adversary is going to be China. So that is the problem that they're basically facing. For me, it's quite understandable. I don't actually think that all of the society in any country will ever agree 100% on the threat or how likely it is or what would actually happen. But I think there is value in terms of working with the society to explain what potential threats could be, what it actually means, but also that, hey, when you do resilience, you don't necessarily need to think about a military invasion. You're building your ability to respond to any kind of problem. It can be a typhoon, it can be another COVID-19 pandemic or something similar. And another thing that I wanted to share is, in fact, throughout my work, I've sort of really learned that you shouldn't underestimate the people and you should have difficult conversations with them and don't be afraid to have those conversations with people. There is a big role in resilience for empowering people, but to be empowered through the very practical measures, training, capabilities, they also need to be empowered by knowledge and understanding of what could happen to them, but also understanding what they could do in case something happens. So I think that this knowledge and not being afraid to have difficult conversations is an important aspect.

Scott Harold

I'll just add to that excellent response. Look on Taiwan's morale and will to fight, there's been a lot of surveys on this. I think there is a widely believed but shallowly substantiated belief that Taiwan won't fight. Taiwan doesn't have a will to resist. Taiwan will collapse. And of course, that is a Chinese talking point. China has every interest in conveying to Taiwan's society and to the outside world that Taiwan is soft, unprepared, and unwilling to stand up for itself. I think we've seen a lot of research in recent years that have looked at this question through public opinion surveys and have found that actually Taiwan's will to resist, in fact its will to fight, is much higher than is publicly believed, in fact higher than 50%. In some surveys, I think we've seen that Taiwan is in fact more willing to fight than China might even be. Not eager, but certainly not willing to submit. It's also hard to know in advance, right? Like you're asked, ask me today, what will you do in this situation? Well, it's hypothetical, but once people start to see, holy cow, China just shot a missile into my neighbor's apartment building and there are 20 dead children. Things that happen in Ukraine. There is an enormous rally around the flag, like not in my country, I won't go without a fight. And also once a fight starts, there's no getting off the island, right? Like you're there, so either you stay and fight and win, or you stay in fight and die, or you say and fight, and are conquered. There is a reality in Taiwan that there are people who have very substantially different conceptions of Taiwan's identity. There were roughly two and a half million people who came over from China in 1945 at the end of World War II or between 1945 and 1949 with the KMT, the Nationalist Party that had been ruling on the mainland, that was defeated by the Communist Party of China and that removed to Taiwan and then ruled Taiwan for the next roughly 55 years. As the ruling party, much of that under a military dictatorship. Their narrative was that Taiwan was always part of China, although it had not been incorporated into the Manchuching Empire until the late 19th century, that it must be part of China, and that, of course, they would reclaim the mainland from Taiwan through a glorious return to the mainland. For people who had been living in Taiwan, whose ancestors had been living in Taiwan for hundreds of years or more, this didn't exactly resonate with their experience, right? And those people suffered substantial repression under the KMT. Moreover, many of the descendants of those two and a half million people who came over in the second half of the 1940s have themselves grown up only on Taiwan. They only know Taiwan. And many of them now, given how long it's been that Taiwan has democratized, have only known a democratic free Taiwan. Not quote unquote free China in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, but actually free Taiwan. And so irrespective of what their origins may have been, when their family arrived in Taiwan, they have become Taiwanese in a sense, not an ethnic sense, but in a civic nationalist census, as my friend Michael Cole calls it. And for those people, irrespective of whether they ultimately hope to be independent... Or they're willing to put it off to some future, depending on the conditions at the time, or they think, you know, if China democratized, we would be happy to unify with China. Nonetheless, they probably do not think that it's acceptable for China to compel Taiwan's unification by force. And there are elements of risk acceptance that associate with this question of how Taiwan should prepare and respond to the threat China faces. Now, for some people, they think look, if we start preparing to be resilient. Maybe that will empower those of our citizens who favor outright independence to say, look, we could withstand a Chinese attack, we should do it. I don't hear members of Taiwan society who say like, look, once 30% of our populace has enough food and fuel, like who cares if China shoots missiles at us, we'll just declare independence. I think that's a little overblown. I will say, while we were on the island, we did hear from people who directly said, "I believe that I am on a list that China has, that if they land forces and if they conquer Taiwan, I and my family will be taken to the mainland and tried and then either imprisoned for life or tortured or executed." We heard that directly from a person sitting across the table from us. It was quite jarring to realize, even though you know it intellectually before you go there if you read the news and you see what China has said, nonetheless when someone says to you "I know or I believe that I am one of the people who China wants to kill torture in prison," it brings it home. I will say there are some people in Taiwan who think China wouldn't dare attack Taiwan because the United States or the rest of the international community will come to their aid. There are others who would say, well, this is China's modality. This is how they rally the public opinion in China. They always talk a big game. They always seek to bluff, but they haven't attacked in the past, so they're not going to now. These are just different opinions and people are looking at the same world and seeing some signals and putting them together in a way that leads them to draw different conclusions.

Deanna Lee

Alright, that's all the time we have for today. Marta and Scott, thanks for a fascinating conversation.

Marta Kepe

Thank you for having me.

Scott Harold

Thank you for having us, Deanna.

Deanna Lee

And thanks for listening. You can learn more about the research we discussed on this episode at rand.org/policyminded. This episode was produced by me, Deanna Lee. I recorded it, along with Evan Banks, who also edited the episode. RAND's director of digital outreach is Pete Wilmoth. We'll see you next time on Policy Minded. RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis.