ROC Marine Corps infantry units of 99th Regiment conducted an urban warfare drill in Kaohsiung’s Tsoying Naval Base on August 27, 2013 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. (Photo by Ashley Pon/Getty Images)

TAIPEI: While Europe’s sense of security has been shaken by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war has also reverberated in Taiwan, which has been facing the threat of a Chinese invasion for more than seven decades.

The Ukrainian resistance has surprised and inspired many here, but a new sense of concern and urgency is also palpable. Under president Tsai Ing-wen, who took office in 2016, Taiwan’s military has ordered billions of dollars of weapons from the United States, but there has been little public discussion of how to prepare, should China attempt to invade and occupy Taiwan.

Like Ukraine, Taiwan is a thriving democracy threatened by a giant revanchist neighbor. It also does not have any mutual defense treaty with the US or other countries in its region. Ukraine’s efforts to resist Russia are changing the national conversation here, with more people contemplating how to resist a Chinese attack without direct help from the US or Japan.

“The lesson every Taiwanese is learning from what we are seeing in Ukraine is that we have to defend ourselves, no one else will fight for our democracy like we can,” said Kolas Yotaka, spokeswoman for Taiwan’s presidential office. “We have never stopped preparing for a contingency, and our only principle in this process has always been self-defense, never to attack.”

Until recently, President Tsai has appeared reluctant to discuss how Taiwanese citizens can help defend their country. In the first days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she described comparisons between Ukraine and Taiwan as “cognitive warfare” aimed at damaging Taiwanese morale. But the tone from the government has shifted as the Ukraine conflict drags on, and there are signs that Taiwanese society as a whole is feeling less restrained in talking about preparing for war.

Shortly after a think tank funded by the Ministry of National Defense publicly noted the vital role that Ukrainian reservists played in resisting the Russian invasion, the ministry doubled the period for reservist training from one week to two weeks — a small but significant step. The ministry also mooted including women veterans in reservist training for the first time. Despite a public that is not accustomed to thinking about the nuts and bolts of self-defense, there has been little public pushback to either move.

“The Ukraine situation is an opportunity to motivate and mobilize a population and legislature that has historically underestimated the risk and underinvested in Taiwan’s own security,” said Ivan Kanapathy, a CSBA Senior Fellow who previously served as the NSC Deputy Senior Director for Asia and a US military attaché in Taipei.

“With the PLA [People’s Liberation Army]’s significant and capable counter-intervention capabilities, the Taiwanese people must understand that a US-led coalition can only come to their aid if Taiwan can hold out for an extended period of time, regardless of a security commitment,” Kanapathy added. Both the US and Japanese governments have said in the past year that they see Taiwan’s security as a national security issue in their respective countries.

With municipal and county elections this November that will serve as a gauge of Tsai’s popularity with Taiwanese voters, the cautious but not necessarily risk-averse president — think of her congratulatory call to then-president-elect Donald Trump — may have a window to raise public awareness of the threat posed by China. There is also an opportunity to move towards a more nimble, asymmetric approach to defense, rather than focusing on fighters, tanks and other big-ticket items.

Much of Taiwan’s current strategic focus is on trying to gain or maintain local air superiority, and as a result the country has focused heavily on high-end capabilities to keep its airspace under control. But rather than tanks and fighters being the backbone of Ukraine’s stiff resistance, it has been anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry, along with well-trained reservists and a mobilized general public that have made the difference.

From a military standpoint, shifting to a more mobile and nimble approach similar to what Ukraine has would seem to make sense. And Taiwan’s lack of land borders to bring in materiel during a conflict means that now is the time to decide on how to shift, and then to stockpile in anticipation of a blockade.

“The lowest hanging fruit would be to rapidly divest from military capabilities that have little to no value to Taiwan’s defense in order to free up force structure and other resources for vital missions,” Kanapathy said.

“For example, airborne, amphibious assault/landing, and close air support are not useful mission sets for Taiwan’s armed forces in any real-world scenario. China can bring many more platforms to the Taiwan fight than Russia brought to the Ukraine fight, which will require significantly more lethal ordnance on survivable platforms.”

Kanapathy recommended CDCMs to target ships, TOWs and Javelins to target landing craft, and Stingers to target aircraft in order to prevent Chinese forces from gaining lodgment. He also said Taiwan should work closely with US and allied UUV technology companies to modernize its inventory of sea mines, he added. “Gaining the ability to program, pilot and arm, and disarm self-propelled sea mines would provide Taiwan’s leadership with significant flexibility in its decision making.”

Of course, China is also looking at Ukraine for lessons learned. Ultimately, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his planners may well conclude that quickly delivering a fait accompli through a shock-and-awe-style bombardment — alongside cyber, space and information operations by PLA Strategic Support Force — would be the most likely way to avoid getting bogged down as Russia has.

Given the density of Taiwan, that would likely mean mass civilian casualties and a major rebuilding effort for Beijing, but that may be a trade off the PLA is willing to make for a quick conflict, especially given that it would likely be a bonanza for state-owned engineering and construction companies.

Any resistance effort in the face of such bombardment would have to come from mobilizing the population, which is another major lesson from Ukraine.

A poll published in December by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy found that more than 70% of respondents were willing to fight China if it attacked without provocation. The opportunities for Taiwanese outside of the military who seek to defend their country are negligible at the moment, but that is slowly changing.

At a Forward Alliance event, Taiwanese civilians practice first-aid techniques. (Forward Alliance)

A small but growing number of non-profits in Taiwan are pushing for greater civil preparedness. One of those, Forward Alliance, has focused on first-aid training for civilians. Enoch Wu, who heads the organization and is also the Taipei chair for Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party, said Ukraine’s resilience has been a lesson in the value of citizens being both willing and able to help each other.

“The best way to deter military conflict is to demonstrate a credible national will to resist, by combining military readiness with civil preparedness,” Wu said. “We are working to unify efforts across society, getting first responders like the fire agency and the police force, civic organizations, and the general public, to work together on a regular basis. It is a bad idea to practice mobilization and collaboration for the first time during a crisis.”

A former special forces soldier, Wu concurred with Kanapathy on the importance of shifting away from easy targets such as jets and tanks and instead focusing on taking the fight to the enemy near the nation’s shores and within its airspace, as well as prioritizing the stockpiling of munitions.

“We need to allocate a larger share of our defense budget to survivable weapons that can disrupt PLA’s operations and threaten their invading forces,” Wu said. “The more dispersed and mobile, the easier to operate, the more likely our weapons will be useful during conflict.”