The Taiwanese have proven to be resilient in the face of disasters and they have resisted continuing attempts to subordinate Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Nonetheless, the Taiwanese can and should do more to become even more resilient and to be better prepared for resistance should the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) try to annex Taiwan.
President William Lai (賴清德) argues that the Taiwanese should determine their own fate. This position continues the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) tradition of opposing the CCP’s annexation of Taiwan. Lai challenges the CCP’s narrative by stating that Taiwan is not subordinate to the PRC and the PRC has no right to represent Taiwan in international fora.
Moreover, the DPP’s position is found in and supported by the Republic of China’s (ROC) Constitution, which states in Article 1 that “The Republic of China, founded on the Three Principles of the People, shall be a democratic republic of the people, to be governed by the people and for the people.”
Consistent with these fundamental Constitutional principles, the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation reported in its October 2024 publication of its survey of Taiwanese opinion, when asked if they agreed with Lai’s statement made during Taiwan’s ROC Double Ten National Day speech that the “People’s Republic of China has no right to represent Taiwan,” almost a super majority of 70.8 percent agreed, while only a minority of 20.1 percent disagreed. Furthermore, the pollsters noted that across all partisan affiliations, age groups, and educational accomplishments, Taiwanese preferred self-representation.
Resistance is not just countering propaganda. Resistance is a state of mind and action. Resistance is in the DNA of Taiwanese. Taiwanese resisted many invaders — the Dutch, the Spanish, the Manchu Qing Empire, the Japanese (Home Rule Movement), and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (228 Massacre in 1947 where 18,000-28,000 Taiwanese were killed and the White Terror period from 1949-1992 where over 3,000 were executed and 140,000 imprisoned, and the Wild Lily student movement in 1990).
However, there have been times even during the democratic period when the Taiwanese rose up to respond to a threat to their democracy including the Wild Strawberry Movement (2008), the Sunflower Movement (2014), and the Bluebird Movement (May 2024).
Taiwanese have also risen to the challenge of natural disasters. Scorched into the soul of Taiwanese are devastating earthquakes, such as the 921 earthquake of 1999, (7.7 on the Richter scale) that killed more than 2,400 people, injured 10,000, and rendered 100,000 homeless. The 1935 Shinchiku-Taichu earthquake (7.1 Richter scale) with its epicenter in Miaoli County was the worst recorded earthquake in Taiwan, which claimed 3,276 lives and left over 12,000 injured. In April 2024, a 7.4 earthquake occurred south of Hualien County on the eastern side of Taiwan in which 18 people were killed and over 1,150 people were injured.
Taiwanese have also faced the challenge of typhoons, including Typhoon Morakot in southern Taiwan in 2009 that led to the catastrophic collapse of a mudslide dam upstream of the city of Siaolin (小林), resulting in a devastating mudflow that caused 471 deaths.
The fire rescue services, the military, and regular citizens have all proved willing to help however and whenever they can. Taiwanese are resilient and are willing to step up to the challenges they face, whether natural or human-caused disasters.
For decades the PRC has claimed Taiwan and has repeatedly stated its intention to annex it. The PRC’s annexation intent is even expressed in its constitution. Today, Taiwan faces an extremely aggressive authoritarian and totalitarian neighbor that is planning to occupy Taiwan peacefully or by force.
Given this real and persistent threat and given that the Taiwanese have demonstrated both resilience and resistance, it is past time to strengthen Taiwanese resistance to the CCP. Lai has begun this process by establishing three committees, one of which is the “National Whole-of-Society Resilience Committee.”
Meanwhile, many sources exist for further investigation of resilience and resistance, and some are available in traditional Chinese. The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) has forty-five documents and audiovisual materials translated into Mandarin from a library of almost four hundred resources in English and other resources in more than seventy languages. Of these Mandarin resources, Dr. Gene Sharp’s books are prominent.
Gene Sharp (1928-2018) was the world-class leader in nonviolent resistance who authored numerous books on this subject in English. Dr. Sharp visited Taiwan at least twice (2009 and 2014) and authorized the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) and other organizations to translate his books. Fortunately, several of these studies are available gratis in traditional Mandarin.
Many of Sharp’s works were translated following the 2008 Wild Strawberry Movement and later helped the Sunflower Movement (2014). Recall that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) tried to make Taiwan economically dependent on and integrated with China and the Sunflower Movement resisted his efforts. To this end, Ma wanted a free trade agreement which would have made Taiwan more economically dependent on the PRC and would have allowed PRC residents to open more businesses in Taiwan. He and his party also attempted to transform Taiwanese society to be more PRC-friendly. For example, they tried to revise the high school curriculum guidelines that would promote PRC-centric viewpoints.
All these actions activated young adults and high school students to conduct a range of nonviolent protests which eventually led to the 2016 KMT electoral defeat. Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and the DPP won 68 of 113 legislative seats and the KMT garnered only thirty-five, securing control of the executive and the legislature.
Below is a list of four Mandarin translated books by Sharp that are available free online from a variety of sources including the ICNC and the Albert Einstein Institution:
Self-Liberation Extended (自我解放戰略規劃指南, bilingual Chinese and English) 2003, translated by PCT, 2012.
Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential (啟動非暴力抗爭) 2005, translated by PCT, 2013.
From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation (從獨裁走向民主: 解放運動的概念框架), 2013, translated by PCT, 2013.
How Nonviolent Struggle Works (第一次非暴力抗爭就上手), 2013, translated by PCT, 2015.
As part of his lifelong research, Dr. Sharp analyzed many instances of nonviolent struggles around the world, which he cataloged into 198 different methods, and developed a typology of three distinct resistance categories: protest and persuasion; noncooperation; and intervention. Swarthmore College in the US furthered his research by creating a Global Nonviolent Action Database that lists practical examples of each of these 198 nonviolent methods.
It is time now to revive Sharp’s books, especially the 198 methods of nonviolent resistance to energize civilian resilience to apply Benjamin Franklin’s 1736 aphorism: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Coincidentally, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) and Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) have been promoting translations of Dr. Otto Fiala’s book The Resistance Operating Concept (2020), which includes Sharp’s 198 methods. Dr. Fiala, like Dr. Sharp, approved the translations and Fiala also visited Taiwan for the first time at the end of October this year. The MND published a complete translation of Fiala’s book in 2023 along with the country case studies appendices from WWII and the Cold War. Hsiao has promoted a similar book published in 2024 by Formosa Defense Vision which reproduced Fiala’s original version except for the country case studies appendices.
The Resistance Operating Concept argues that resistance is “a nation’s organized, whole-of-society effort, encompassing the full range of activities from nonviolent to violent, led by a legally established government (potentially exiled/displaced or shadow) to re-establish independence and autonomy within its sovereign territory that has been wholly or partially occupied by a foreign power.” Resilience is defined as “the will and ability to withstand external pressures and influences and/or recover from the effects of those pressures or influences.”
One important lesson from the book is that a nation should establish the resistance structure prior to conflict. When a nation prepares, it builds national resilience. Oftentimes, the simple fact of a nation’s strong resilience translates into deterrence of an expansionist country; leaders of aggressive countries calculate a prohibitive cost of invasion. An excellent example of a country that demonstrates both strong resilience and resistance is Switzerland. Most of the former Soviet Republics in 1991 immediately built their own resistance structures in their respective countries to protect their new independence.
The entire population must be involved: the military and the police and other armed forces are responsible for violent activities against the invading force, while the population is responsible for nonviolent resistance and supporting the efforts of the government.
To garner enhanced interest in resilience and resistance, I propose that Lai’s office solicit public practical suggestions of actions to counter CCP propaganda. Ideally, those ideas selected for promulgation would win a prize. When the public can participate in countering CCP propaganda, Taiwanese can better understand resistance. Public involvement in policy formulation and implementation is exactly how democracies should operate, “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Taiwanese should understand what actions they can undertake to prepare to be resilient before a conflict and what actions are possible should the CCP attempt to take over Taiwan. Activities like these will help make Taiwanese more resilient and better prepared for what will come.
Guermantes Lailari is a retired US Air Force Foreign Area officer specializing in counterterrorism, irregular warfare, missile defense, and strategy. He holds advanced degrees in international relations and strategic intelligence. He was a Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taiwan Fellow in 2022, a visiting scholar at National Chengchi University and National Defense University in 2023, and is a visiting researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in 2024.
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