A global outage affecting computers running Windows operating systems earlier this month took airlines around the world by surprise, leading to air traffic chaos, while other transportation systems, financial companies, and hospitals and clinics, as well as government departments worldwide were also affected.
In Taiwan, not even the nation’s largest hospital system — National Taiwan University Hospital — was spared.
As the saying goes: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” With this incident over, what lessons can be learned?
First, critical infrastructure is by no means limited to hardware. With ever-increasing digitization and automation of equipment and infrastructure, software is playing a far more important role. Peacetime has made people more complacent and less aware of these changes.
When departments in governments and private entities are busy compiling management inventories for their critical infrastructure, they cannot let such foundational software as operations systems slip through the cracks. At the same time, software crashes absolutely must be included in emergency response training to address problematic software, hardware or computer system breakdowns.
Second, no matter how technologically advanced or how great the level of digitization and automation is, governments and private enterprises must keep backups to be able to maintain the basic functional equipment society needs. Governments and companies need to integrate resilience into their mindset.
Last, Taiwan’s long-term development has tended to favor hardware production, but has somewhat neglected the software side of computers. As a result, the nation has put too high a degree of trust and reliance on Microsoft products and those of other major international manufacturers. Should another system outage occur, all the nation would be able to do is wait for the original manufacturer to implement a solution or fix. The nation cannot have a repeat of this problem when using generative artificial intelligence.
Huang Wei-ping works in public service and has a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.
Translated by Tim Smith
On Sunday, 13 new urgent care centers (UCC) officially began operations across the six special municipalities. The purpose of the centers — which are open from 8am to midnight on Sundays and national holidays — is to reduce congestion in hospital emergency rooms, especially during the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year. It remains to be seen how effective these centers would be. For one, it is difficult for people to judge for themselves whether their condition warrants visiting a major hospital or a UCC — long-term public education and health promotions are necessary. Second, many emergency departments acknowledge
US President Donald Trump’s seemingly throwaway “Taiwan is Taiwan” statement has been appearing in headlines all over the media. Although it appears to have been made in passing, the comment nevertheless reveals something about Trump’s views and his understanding of Taiwan’s situation. In line with the Taiwan Relations Act, the US and Taiwan enjoy unofficial, but close economic, cultural and national defense ties. They lack official diplomatic relations, but maintain a partnership based on shared democratic values and strategic alignment. Excluding China, Taiwan maintains a level of diplomatic relations, official or otherwise, with many nations worldwide. It can be said that
Victory in conflict requires mastery of two “balances”: First, the balance of power, and second, the balance of error, or making sure that you do not make the most mistakes, thus helping your enemy’s victory. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made a decisive and potentially fatal error by making an enemy of the Jewish Nation, centered today in the State of Israel but historically one of the great civilizations extending back at least 3,000 years. Mind you, no Israeli leader has ever publicly declared that “China is our enemy,” but on October 28, 2025, self-described Chinese People’s Armed Police (PAP) propaganda
Lockheed Martin on Tuesday responded to concerns over delayed shipments of F-16V Block 70 jets, saying it had added extra shifts on its production lines to accelerate progress. The Ministry of National Defense on Monday said that delivery of all 66 F-16V Block 70 jets — originally expected by the end of next year — would be pushed back due to production line relocations and global supply chain disruptions. Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said that Taiwan and the US are working to resolve the delays, adding that 50 of the aircraft are in production, with 10 scheduled for flight
RSS