On June 19, President William Lai (賴清德) announced the establishment of the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee (全社會防衛韌性委員會) at the Presidential Office.
This initiative originates from Lai’s policy of integrating civil and national defense to strengthen Taiwan’s social resilience to natural disasters and growing military threats from China. Although some have criticized the committee as unnecessary symbolism, it can play a proactive role in Taiwan’s civil-military relations.
National and civil defenses are crucial to enhance deterrence against a Chinese invasion. However, a divergence remains between the military and civil society.
The authoritarian era made the military an isolated community detached from Taiwanese society. During the White Terror era, the military was an essential tool for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to defend its autocratic regime. During 38 years of martial law, more than 20,000 people were imprisoned and 5,000 executed, resulting in widespread distrust toward the government and the military.
Democratization ultimately led to the nationalization of the military and imposed restrictions on its law enforcement and judicial powers. However, the military did not become more open as a result.
Bureaucrats in the Ministry of National Defense still frequently cite “lack of professionalism” or “national security concerns” to refuse engagement with civil society.
In the case of army corporal Hung Chung-chiu’s (洪仲丘) death in 2013, the ministry’s passive attitude and evasive response to concerns over military abuse sparked significant pushback from society. Taiwanese men’s experience of compulsory military service — characterized by poor, outdated training and being a waste of time — also contributes to public distrust of the ministry.
Despite military service being one of the least popular career options, many Taiwanese cherish their democracy and freedom, and see civil defense as an alternative way to contribute to defense, such as by participating in training and workshops held by civil defense non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like the Kuma Academy.
However, the lack of interaction between the ministry and civil defense NGOs leads to distrust, which hinders cooperation.
Former minister of national defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) once described the Kuma Academy as a guerrilla group training with paintballs. However, the Kuma Academy has never provided shooting training.
The National Pension Reform Committee, established in 2016, provides a model for promoting social consensus. The new defense resilience committee should learn from the experience by inviting representatives from the government, military and civil society.
The Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee can become a platform of diverse perspectives and provide a comprehensive proposal for security strategy rather than a tool for expanding presidential power, as a pro-China former KMT legislator wrongly claimed.
By bringing fresh knowledge and ideas into defense policy-making, Taiwan can accelerate its transition to asymmetric defense and strengthen deterrence against China’s aggression.
Integrating civil and national defense would also enhance Taiwan’s resilience and allow every Taiwanese to play a role in securing peace in the Taiwan Strait.
Calvin Chu is a research associate at the Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party Mission in the US. He worked for the civil defense non-governmental organization Forward Alliance. The opinions expressed here are solely his own and do not express the views or opinions of his employer.
Chinese state-owned companies COSCO Shipping Corporation and China Merchants have a 30 percent stake in Kaohsiung Port’s Kao Ming Container Terminal (Terminal No. 6) and COSCO leases Berths 65 and 66. It is extremely dangerous to allow Chinese companies or state-owned companies to operate critical infrastructure. Deterrence theorists are familiar with the concepts of deterrence “by punishment” and “by denial.” Deterrence by punishment threatens an aggressor with prohibitive costs (like retaliation or sanctions) that outweigh the benefits of their action, while deterrence by denial aims to make an attack so difficult that it becomes pointless. Elbridge Colby, currently serving as the Under
The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday last week said it ordered Internet service providers to block access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書, also known as RedNote in English) for a year, citing security risks and more than 1,700 alleged fraud cases on the platform since last year. The order took effect immediately, abruptly affecting more than 3 million users in Taiwan, and sparked discussions among politicians, online influencers and the public. The platform is often described as China’s version of Instagram or Pinterest, combining visual social media with e-commerce, and its users are predominantly young urban women,
Most Hong Kongers ignored the elections for its Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2021 and did so once again on Sunday. Unlike in 2021, moderate democrats who pledged their allegiance to Beijing were absent from the ballots this year. The electoral system overhaul is apparent revenge by Beijing for the democracy movement. On Sunday, the Hong Kong “patriots-only” election of the LegCo had a record-low turnout in the five geographical constituencies, with only 1.3 million people casting their ballots on the only seats that most Hong Kongers are eligible to vote for. Blank and invalid votes were up 50 percent from the previous
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi lit a fuse the moment she declared that trouble for Taiwan means trouble for Japan. Beijing roared, Tokyo braced and like a plot twist nobody expected that early in the story, US President Donald Trump suddenly picked up the phone to talk to her. For a man who normally prefers to keep Asia guessing, the move itself was striking. What followed was even more intriguing. No one outside the room knows the exact phrasing, the tone or the diplomatic eyebrow raises exchanged, but the broad takeaway circulating among people familiar with the call was this: Trump did
RSS