Not if but when - Taiwan waits for China to leap

Taiwanese people are used to air raid sirens and preparations for action ahead of any Chinese invasion, but life must be lived well in the meantime.

Once a year in Taiwan, air raid sirens ring out in a warning to residents to take cover against an attack.

People know the drill because it has been going on for years. It is called the Han Kuang, civil defence rehearsals combined with military exercises on land, sea and air.

But this year the annual drill was the largest and longest as Taiwan ramped up its defence against possible invasion from China, amid reports that Beijing has been scaling up its own military.

The drills are so much a part of Taiwanese people's lives, they prefer not to talk about it.

But New Zealander Mark Hanson, who has lived in Taiwan for 20 years, says people are rattled.

"Particularly the war in Ukraine changed the way that Taiwanese think about a potential invasion and people began doing a lot more preparation," says Hanson, who publishes an arts and culture magazine White Fungus with his brother Ron.

"I know some nurses in their spare time will attend training courses on how to dress bullet wounds."

His friend Nelly, a teacher, says talk about a potential war divides families and some of her friends are too frightened to discuss it.

"We don't want to talk about it. We need to worry about our everyday lives, the living costs and being a human being in a society and still we need to worry about politics? Hah, it's too much."

The Detail is in Taiwan to find out why this independent, democratic island state of 23 million people is so important to China and the US, and what it is like to live with the threat of invasion.

The week-long trip has been organised and funded by Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and included visits to economic and security think tanks and meetings with government ministers, officials and agencies, including the Civil Aviation Authority.

The message was the same at every meeting: Taiwan wants recognition as an independent state at global bodies like the United Nations and it needs international support if there is an invasion or blockade by China.

"It's not if but when," says Colorado-based journalist Kelly Sloan, specialising in defence. "The date 2027 has been talked about for a long time. As long as the current regime is in power in Beijing, it's always going to be on the table. They look at it as repatriating Taiwan, everybody else in the world thinks of it as taking Taiwan."

Sloan says Beijing is more likely to set up a blockade in the Taiwan Strait that separates Taiwan from mainland China and stop shipments of energy - such as liquified natural gas - than mount an attack.

"Taiwan's single largest vulnerability is energy. They are almost entirely dependent on imports for energy. Communist China doesn't really need to invade, all they really need to do is blockade the island and turn the lights off."

At the thinktank the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, Dr Ming-Shih Shen says the worst case scenario is that China's leader Xi Jinpeng will direct the People's Liberation Army to invade Taiwan, fulfilling his mission for unification.

"China has a very strong military power and if Xi Xingpeng decides to invade Taiwan we cannot win alone," he says.

Taipei plans to nearly double its current defence spending by 2030 to five percent of GDP, NT$1.8 trillion (Taiwan dollars) or roughly NZ$100 billion.

But that it is no match for China's growing military might.

"They are definitely preparing for invasion. Whether or not invasion happens, I don't know, no one knows," says Yurii Poita, a Taipei-based Ukraine scholar who has worked for security think tanks in Ukraine and Taiwan.

"Their military buildup is tremendous. China is preparing for this and China is preparing very quickly."

Poita says New Zealand should "be very careful, very cautious and very serious about its own role if Taiwan is invaded", pointing out that the consequences for the region would be significant.

"From my personal discussions with Japanese experts is that they are extremely concerned because if Taiwan is taken by China, China will control all the traffic (shipping) here," he says.

The Detail sent a list of questions to the Chinese embassy in Wellington but has not received a reply. However, Ambassador Wang Xiaolong sent an email to Newsroom's Sam Sachdeva with a letter and statement: "Setting the Record Straight on Taiwan: Historical and Legal Realities must not be ignored."

The letter sets out China's position on Taiwan's status.

"Recently, the United States has once again peddled the fallacy of an "undetermined" final political status of the Taiwan region. This position flagrantly contravenes both historical fact and international law, and directly challenges the authority of UN General Assembly Resolution 2758."

It goes on to say: "There is only one truth for all the noise: there is but one China in the world, and Taiwan has been an integral part of China since ancient times. This is a fact widely documented in historical records, including the Seaboard Geographic Gazetteer compiled in 230 AD during the Three Kingdoms period. In 1885, Taiwan was formally established as China's 20th province."

The letter concludes by saying "any attempt to reverse history, violate international law, or separate Taiwan from China is destined to fail and will never be accepted by the 1.4 billion Chinese people. We sincerely hope that New Zealand, as a peace-loving country, will continue to stand on the right side of history by adhering to the one-China principle, upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and supporting the just cause of the Chinese people in safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity, and seeking national reunification."

Sachdeva says New Zealand is among a large number of countries that follow the One China policy that acknowledges China's position that there is only one true Chinese government.

It also has a trade agreement with Taiwan and an office - not an embassy - in Taipei. Likewise, Taiwan has a representative office in Wellington, not an embassy.

"That's the careful line that we walk. New Zealand ministers generally won't meet with their Taiwanese counterparts or have much to do with them. There have been a few cross party trips to Taiwan in recent years but that's created a bit of a stir. You have the Chinese embassy saying this is jeopardising New Zealand China relations so it is a very testy area."

Back in Taiwan, Kiwi Mark Hanson says despite the escalating threat he has no plans to leave.

"I love it here," he says. "Taiwan is such a safe, relaxed easy going place.

"It's also meaningful because there's an important struggle here. There's a struggle for independence and democracy. It's interesting to be here and watching it on the ground and to be a part of it."

Some interviews for this episode were recorded during a week-long trip to Taiwan organised and funded by its Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

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