Four months ago, Taiwan's retired high-ranking military officers held Taiwan's first civilian-led war game, the "2023 Regional Security Military Simulation." The initial results are now out.

Surprisingly, the key finding turned out not to be how China might plan a military invasion or the losses that would be incurred by China, Taiwan, and the United States. The consequence and impact of an armed conflict would hinge on Taiwan's own tenacity.

Rewind to July of this year. China sent a record number of warplanes into Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone. Concurrently, a simulated war in the Taiwan Strait was being played out in the Center for Public and Business Administration Education at National Chengchi University.

The two-day closed-door war game involved dozens of participants ringed around a map of Taiwan. They're broken into groups of consultants and analysts, as well as six groups representing the interested parties in the region—Taiwan, China, the United States, Japan and Korea, Australia and India, and ASEAN. They played out eight different scenarios in which China launched a military invasion of Taiwan.

Observers included retired high-ranking military officers, diplomats, and defense-related think tanks. Representatives from the semiconductor and shipping industries were also present.

"All of this year, we've been trapped in a 'D-Day' mentality," says Chen Yeong-kang (陳永康), the former Vice Minister of National Defense who was the initiator of this civilian-led program.

Taiwan needs to get rid of its "D-Day" mentality

For more than a year, the Taiwan Strait has been called "the world's most dangerous place" by members of the foreign press. Escalating tension between China and the U.S. has led to speculation that conflict might break out between 2025 and 2027.

Recently, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Bonnie Glaser, an American expert in China affairs, titled "No, Xi Jinping Is Not About to Attack Taiwan." In it, she listed the reasons why China is unprepared to launch military operations against Taiwan. In an interview with CommonWealth Magazine, Glaser explained that while different interest groups might present their own timelines for a hypothetical Chinese invasion, the main cause of escalation this year was the publication of a memo by U.S. Air Force General Michael Minihan.

In January, Minihan predicted in his memo that the U.S. will engage China in an armed conflict over Taiwan in two years—that is, in 2025. Although it did not represent the American government's official position, it had the effect of heightening tension in the Taiwan Strait.

"When Americans talk about conflict in the Taiwan Strait and an amphibious assault by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the data they're using is unfortunately outdated," says Chen. During the first half of this year, when he was invited to attend security councils in Washington, D.C., he was shocked to see that war simulations spearheaded by foreign interest groups were working with inaccurate information.

This is why he's determined to hold civilian-led war games in Taiwan.

(Source: Ming-Tang Huang)

U.S. scholar: “our data was outdated”

Thanks to his background as a navy admiral, Chen was able to point out that the dual factors of urbanization and climate change have eroded many of the beaches on Taiwan's west coast. The addition of artificial installations like tetrapods and wind turbines has all but eliminated the so-called "red beaches" that are suitable for large-scale amphibious invasions. Despite this, war games run by American think tanks were still floating scenarios in which "100,000 members of the PLA landed on Taiwan's beaches."

"After listening to reports from Taiwanese experts like Mr. Chen, we understand that there's a disparity in our data," admits a scholar who is part of a U.S. think tank.

Besides providing the latest information, another reason Chen initiated the civilian-led military simulation was because he wanted representatives from different sectors to brainstorm about the same question: what else can Taiwan do to become better prepared?

In essence, a war game is a brainstorming session. The point is not necessarily the result, but the proposed topics of discussion and the debates that lead to a conclusion. War games in the past usually started the scenario from a week before the armed conflict. But the civilian-led military simulation began the timeline from a month to three months before the first shot was even fired. The broader time frame allowed participants to think more carefully about the question: "what can Taiwan do?"

The simulation was also based on the assumption that the United Nations would continue to function as usual, and that the 21st National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party would take place on schedule.

A closer look at the scenarios reveals that while half of them were conventional military engagements, the other half encompassed how industries, communications, and healthcare services in Taiwan would change before and after the conflict.

Let's first look at the scenarios representing military conflict. The simulation group that role-played as the U.S. projected that it would be able to provide naval support, anti-aircraft support, anti-ship, and anti-submarine defenses. Groups standing in for other nations also projected that Taiwan's geopolitical situation would allow it to count on shared intelligence from other countries in the region.

This meant that Taiwan should proactively pursue involvement in regional and international military operations or drills during peacetime so that it would be able to receive intelligence during wartime.

"But more importantly, it's about civilian needs in the wake of the conflict," stresses Chen.

Civilian preparations are key to war-readiness

Last year, when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, the PLA held live ammunition military drills to simulate a "72-hour Taiwan Blockade." "To China, it is clear that blockading Taiwan has a much lower cost than attacking Taiwan," says Chen.

In a report published by the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College, it was also projected that if China were to attack Taiwan, it would likely engage in a protracted joint blockade and control of the island.

However, due to the exchange of fire and the area’s natural terrain, the U.S. armed forces would be unable to provide Taiwan with adequate supplies through its eastern harbors. The report says, "[T]he material requirements are certain to be large, not to mention the psychological importance of regularly penetrating the blockade to sustain Taiwan's will to fight."

A military drill in Kaohsiung. (Source: Ming-Tang Huang)

This military simulation also clearly highlighted Taiwan's possible vulnerability in terms of civil preparations.

The results are in. The PLA would likely target Taiwan's power generation systems, fuel reservoirs for airplanes, and other important pieces of infrastructure. Whether it’s on the front lines or among civilians, it’s possible that power outages may last as long as 72 to 96 hours. As of right now, Taiwan’s civilian and private sectors are unprepared for such a scenario.

"When other countries run military simulations about Taiwan, they don't consider the economy or people's livelihoods, but we in Taiwan must consider things from the standpoint of national security," says Chen.

In the end, this is why civilian-led war games have their place. There are no scripts for armed conflicts. Every Taiwanese person must take their own future seriously.

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Translated by Jack Chou
Uploaded by Ian Huang