All that stands between Taiwan and a near-total Internet blackout are 14 undersea cables — a network that would make an easy target in the event of a war with China.
And as tensions with Asia’s biggest economy increase, Taiwan’s government has been trying to bolster the nation’s communications, traveling the globe to find a low-orbit satellite system that could back up connections in the event of a failure.
Elon Musk and his Starlink network are one clear solution, but there are a few problems, not least of all Taiwan’s distrust of the billionaire, given his deep business ties with China and pro-Beijing comments.
Illustration: Yusha
Taiwanese and SpaceX began exploratory talks about the satellite supply chain in 2019, but early last year, the cordial tenor of those talks changed. Space Exploration Technologies Corp, as SpaceX is formally known, and its representatives in Taiwan began urging government officials to change a law that requires any telecommunications joint venture to have local majority ownership of at least 51 percent, two officials who took part in the meetings said. That insistence made Taiwan wary, they said.
SpaceX, which owns and operates Starlink, pushed for 100 percent, arguing Musk wanted to own the company outright because that is how he does business around the world, the officials said, asking not to be identified because the discussions were private. In China, Tesla Inc’s most important market outside of the US, the electric vehicle maker wholly owns its factory in Shanghai, an anomaly in a country where other foreign automakers must have local partners.
The lobbying also came with an ultimatum: Unless Taiwan agreed to change its ownership rules, it would get no deal at all.
SpaceX did not respond to multiple requests for comment over a period of weeks. National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Minister Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠) said Taiwan so far does not “plan to amend the rules,” although he added SpaceX would be welcome if there were a mutual compromise.
While talks have now broken down — SpaceX officials have not spoken to Taiwanese government officials since September last year — Taiwan’s vulnerability, along with Musk’s significant financial stakes in China, are still playing high on many people’s minds.
Senior US officials reiterated as recently as February that the US believes China wants its military to be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027, although Taiwanese officials have downplayed the risk of invasion and said there is no sign China is gearing up for war.
In February, Taiwan received a preview of what that might look like, when two subsea Internet cables near Matsu were severed by boats flying Chinese flags. About 14,000 residents spent more than 50 days suffering from painfully slow Internet before Taiwan was able to repair the cables.
Taiwan would need to be ready to withstand a much more comprehensive attack on its digital lifelines in the event of a war with China, says military historian David Silbey, director of teaching and learning at Cornell University’s program in Washington.
“You cannot fight a conventional war if you cannot communicate with your troops by satellite communications,” he said.
To address that vulnerability, the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) intends to launch its first self-made low Earth orbit communication satellite in 2026 and at least one more by 2028, TASA Director-General Wu Jong-shinn (吳宗信) said. Taiwan is also to have rockets capable of carrying payloads weighing over 100kg, he added in an interview.
The agency has since 2019 operated six weather satellites in low Earth orbit through its Formosat-7 program, a partnership with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Still, even NSTC’s Wu admits that for Taiwan to build a minimum constellation of around 20 to 30 communications satellites, it would need “help from global companies or Taiwan’s private sector.”
That sort of scale is required because while newer low Earth orbit constellations like the ones deployed by SpaceX, which travel at an altitude of about 550km, can provide faster Internet access than satellites in higher orbits, those low Earth orbit networks need many more satellites.
The bigger numbers also provide safety, said Mark Matossian, founder of Efficient Frontier Space, a consulting firm in Silicon Valley. While China demonstrated its anti-satellite capabilities back in 2007 by using a missile to destroy one of its own satellites, knocking out an entire low Earth orbit constellation would be more difficult, Matossian said.
That makes SpaceX an obvious partner. The company now has more than 4,300 satellites in orbit and has regulatory approval to launch as many as 12,000.
Starlink’s effectiveness was highlighted last year after Russia invaded Ukraine and sought to take the country offline.
The US and several allies accused Russian state hackers of remotely disabling satellite modems, taking down the Internet for thousands of Ukrainians at a critical moment. On Feb. 26 last year, Ukrainian officials turned to Musk, tweeting at him for help. Within 12 hours he responded, saying Starlink was now active in Ukraine, and more terminals were on the way.
“This was a game changer,” said Illya Vityuk, the head of the department of cyber and information security at Ukraine’s security service. “Starlink was vital not only for our military, but also for our civilians,” he told the Cipher Brief podcast in May.
In April last year, the Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications published a report acknowledging the Starlink satellite system would create “a huge challenge for our current situational awareness and traditional defense capabilities.”
In his comments to the Financial Times published in October, Musk said Beijing had “made clear its disapproval” of the Starlink rollout in Ukraine to help the military circumvent Russia’s severing of Internet access. He added Beijing had sought assurances that he would not sell the service in China.
Those sort of China vagaries worry politicians in Taiwan and beyond.
“If I’m China, I would ask Elon Musk to control all the satellite receivers in Taiwan. If I can control him, in an emergency I can turn it off,” Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Her-ming Chiueh (闕河鳴) said. “That’s my perspective, because we know China better than anyone else.”
Lincoln Hines, a China space expert and assistant professor at the US Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama, agrees Taiwan has reasons to be concerned.
“Could Taiwan really count on the goodwill of Elon Musk in a crisis? That’s a position not many countries would like to be in,” he said.
Taiwan might also be pursuing military options with the US and other allies. The Ministry of Defense told Bloomberg the military has “multiple backups, with satellite as one of the measures,” but added it does not “comment on details of war preparations.”
With any Starlink deal in limbo, officials are searching for other alternatives, including seeking a work-around to the ownership laws.
In September last year, the Ministry of Digital Affairs announced a proof-of-concept program that would allow satellite providers to operate in Taiwan on an emergency basis, without having to set up a new company or be bound by local ownership requirements.
The government opened the program to all the satellite providers, according to Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang (唐鳳).
However, SpaceX has not expressed interest, Wu Tsung-tsong said.
Regardless, Tang said her goal remains to set up 700 satellite receivers in and around Taiwan, using a “plurality” of satellite providers to avoid a single point of failure.
To that end, Tang and other officials have traveled to the US and the UK over the past year to meet with vendors.
The ministry is in discussions with Project Kuiper, Amazon.com Inc’s satellite enterprise, and London-based OneWeb Ltd has also signaled interest, Tang said. OneWeb plans to offer some coverage for Taiwan by the end of the year.
Meanwhile local electronics giant Hon Hai Technology Group — globally known as Foxconn — the maker of Apple Inc iPhones, expects to launch its first low Earth orbit communication satellite in the fourth quarter, company chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said in May.
Space development is one of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) top priorities.
Her government in 2019 pledged to invest NT$25.1 billion (US$801.1 million) in the sector over the next decade. There are already 46 Taiwanese companies in the supply chain for Starlink and other global operators, and the country aims to increase the output value of its space industry to NT$1 trillion by 2029, from NT$216 billion last year, TASA says.
Some companies are focused on going deeper into space. Taipei-based Lung Hwa Electronics, which has a partnership with Hughes Network Systems LLC, won approval in April to offer a satellite service in Taiwan via a geosynchronous satellite, which typically orbits about 37,000km above the equator.
“Taiwan really needs satellites due to the vulnerability of the undersea cables,” Lung Hwa Electronics CEO Sharon Wang (王雅萱) said.
Taiwan faces obstacles to its space-based communications backup plan, though. Approximately 120 satellites in low Earth orbit are needed to ensure uninterrupted coverage, Wu Jong-shinn said. That is far more than his agency anticipates launching in the coming years.
Another bottleneck is the shortage of rockets capable of carrying the satellites into space. There are no local options, although startup Taiwan Innovative Space Inc expects to conduct its third rocket launch attempt in the coming months.
November last year, TASA announced a March launch aboard an Arianespace SA rocket for Triton, Taiwan’s first locally built weather satellite. A failed Arianespace launch in December last year set back that plan, though. TASA now hopes it can get Triton into orbit next month.
And even well-funded companies can face setbacks. Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc, backed by billionaire Richard Branson, filed for bankruptcy after suffering a high-profile launch failure in January.
That is one reason Lung Hwa Electronics’ Wang believes Taiwan needs to hedge its bets instead of committing too deeply to local solutions. Her company has spent six years building its space business, requiring large amounts of technology, capital and talent.
“Homegrown is a goal for every country, but the point is how fast you can achieve it,” Wang said. “We must use others’ strength to shorten the time needed.”
With assistance from Loren Grush
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