Strengthening Taiwan’s civil society during wartime: Lessons drawn from its pandemic governance

Since former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022, concerns over a potential military conflict in the Taiwan Strait have not only persisted but intensified. This evolving situation has captured global attention, particularly with respect to how the Taiwanese view China’s growing threat and their willingness to defend Taiwan in the event of war.

In preparation for potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait, it is equally critical to assess the resilience of Taiwan’s civil society during wartime, an area deserving of more attention. Civil society resilience refers to a society’s ability to operate without disruption during crises, with citizens continuing to carry out their lives and perform their duties without panic. After all, war is not only fought with weapons on battlefields; it is also a battle of societal wills. Self-defense willingness transcends the battlefield; it includes the entire society’s mental readiness to face the reality of war. Preventing societal panic, preserving public confidence, and maintaining morale are pivotal elements of a broader defense strategy. Societal resilience is a cornerstone of Taiwan’s defense strategy.

My accumulated research on Taiwan’s COVID-19 governance provides insight into the current resilience level of Taiwan’s civil society in a crisis setting. Taiwan is highly praised for its pandemic governance. While there are inherent differences between public health crises and military conflicts, there are also similarities. Unlike other disasters, such as earthquakes or hurricanes, where risk levels can be calculated, COVID-19 presented as a transboundary and unprecedented crisis with significant unknowns and uncertainties, especially when the pandemic first began. Similarly, a war crisis, particularly in its early stages, involves numerous uncertainties and unknowns. This article draws on lessons learned from managing a pandemic to offer insights into preparing for war, highlighting strengths and identifying areas where Taiwanese civil society needs improvement before the outbreak of a conflict.

1. Early and swift virus securitization helped mobilize a whole-of-nation pandemic response.

My research shows that a pivotal factor behind Taiwan’s COVID-19 success is that Taiwan acted swiftly to securitize the coronavirus and to wage a war against an invisible enemy even before the virus spread significantly within its borders. Political elites continuously and consistently used “warlike” language to describe the virus and asked citizens to fight accordingly. For instance, President Tsai Ing-wen said multiple times that “we believe fighting COVID-19 is like waging a real war (防疫視同作戰).” In a national security meeting in late January 2020, she also said “Our top guideline for combating COVID-19 is: never underestimate the enemy, and prepare for early deployment.” Such rhetoric was then echoed by other political elites like Chen Shih-chung, the minister of health and welfare throughout most of COVID-19, who reiterated various times in the COVID-19 press conferences that Taiwanese should “never underestimate the enemy, and get ready to fight the enemy with our utmost effort (料敵從寬、禦敵從嚴).”

This strategy yielded several benefits. First and foremost, it provided a clear, unified framework that helped citizens understand the situation and their roles, thereby reducing societal panic. Second, successful virus securitization fostered a whole-of-nation response, evidenced by the rapid expansion of mask production and collaborative efforts between civil society and the government, such as grassroots community g0v’s role in fact-checking COVID-19 misinformation and the bottom-up crowdfunded “Taiwan Can Help” campaign, to name a few. Third, it led to high voluntary compliance among citizens; my experiment found that 68% of the Taiwanese population recognized COVID-19 as a national security threat in May 2022, and those who viewed the virus as a greater security threat were more likely to support stringent border-related containment measures imposed by the government.

Similar to the COVID-19 crisis, managing the early stages of a war crisis, characterized by high uncertainty and a chaotic information environment, is pivotal. The absence of a unified societal consensus on the nature of the war (i.e., is there a war? Who is responsible?) can severely impede effective governance and lead to societal panic. The COVID-19 experience demonstrates that the political elites’ ability to clearly and decisively define a crisis is crucial, as it shapes the trajectory of crisis governance. During the pandemic, Taiwan’s government utilized clear and coherent messaging, which not only helped the public understand the crisis but also facilitated calm and constructive participation in the whole-of-nation response. This strategy would be even more critical in military contexts, where the stakes are significantly higher and the need for a unified public response is essential. However, as China leverages more gray zone tactics and hybrid warfare strategies, it can also be challenging to clearly define when and what the conflict is. Facing hybrid and gray zone warfare, Taiwan’s government has to develop a clear framework and take a more decisive and authoritative role in defining the nature of any emerging war crisis.

2. Politicization of vaccines crippled effective governance and bolstered misinformation.

If Taiwan’s early COVID-19 success stemmed from effectively securitizing the crisis and viewing the virus as a national security threat, its subsequent struggles can be attributed to the politicization of the crisis. This politicization not only amplified and exploited existing vulnerabilities but also created openings for massive disinformation campaigns, which seriously undermined national unity and crippled effective governance.

Taiwan lived almost free from coronavirus for more than one year. Its first major outbreak happened in May 2021 and introduced new uncertainty and societal panic; it also triggered a wave of disinformation from China. The situation was exacerbated by the island’s vaccine shortage problem and that fact that Taiwan’s home-grown vaccine was still under development. Political parties in Taiwan exploited the outbreak, politicizing vaccine procurement and distribution issues, and portraying the government as incompetent. Once the virus was politicized, the public health crisis became a political crisis. The vaccine situation was eventually mitigated through strategic international support, with vaccine aid from the United States and Japan helping to temper the political crisis.

Such an experience demonstrates that it only takes an outbreak, compounded by resource shortage and a disinformation campaign, to politicize a pandemic. Notably, as Taiwan is at the forefront of China’s disinformation attack, COVID-19-related misinformation was present throughout the pandemic, but its effect was not as catastrophic before the first outbreak. It became evident that depoliticizing the virus by making it a national security issue fostered solidarity and unity; however, once the virus was politicized, the resulting panic made it easy for people to succumb to misinformation. Despite the Taiwan government’s laudable effort to be transparent, managing the combination of virus politicization with the infodemic proved particularly challenging for liberal democracies.

The inevitability of casualties in war makes a conflict’s framing highly susceptible to politicization. For example, political parties may attribute blame differently and call for various actions or inactions. A recent incident involving the deadly collision of Chinese and Taiwanese fishing boats near Kinmen Island illustrates how politicization can significantly hinder government responses. It is crucial for Taiwan to prevent the politicization of any future conflict to maintain national unity and protect the population from misinformation attacks. However, as demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, top-down efforts for transparency are insufficient. Enhancing bottom-up public awareness of information warfare and increasing media literacy are also essential to strengthen Taiwan’s societal fabric against the strains of both misinformation and issue politicization. While some civil society efforts are underway to raise public awareness about information warfare, more extensive actions are needed. This is also the area where more international cooperation among liberal democracies can happen.

3. It’s crucial for Taiwan to recognize its capacity limits and enhance them during peacetime, not just in crisis.

Taiwan’s struggle with vaccine production during the pandemic starkly contrasts its success in rapidly scaling up mask production, highlighting the limits of the island’s manufacturing capacity. Due to Taiwan’s exclusion from the World Health Organization, Taiwan has developed a “self-help” mentality since the SARS outbreak. At the onset of the crisis, Taiwan treated both masks and vaccines as essential “war reserve” items that needed to be domestically manufactured. However, Taiwan’s industrial base, traditionally centered around small- and medium-sized enterprises which are known for their flexibility and industry-level economies of scale, has only developed coordination capacities in traditional manufacturing industries like textiles. Before the pandemic, Taiwan had not established industry-level coordination or manufacturing capacity in biotechnology. Cultivating manufacturing capacity during a crisis, amid high uncertainty and time constraints, is nearly impossible. Consequently, while an abundance of masks earned Taiwan international praise, the vaccine shortage led to a political crisis.

Therefore, building manufacturing capacity should be a peacetime endeavor, tailored to meet national strategic needs. For example, Taiwan’s ongoing collaboration with U.S. companies to boost its biomanufacturing capacity is a step in the right direction. Partnerships between the government, industry, and society need to start early, building trust and coordination skills that can be easily activated in times of war.

Investment in manufacturing capacity should extend to critical infrastructure, such as the development of low-orbit satellites that can be used to mitigate a war’s impact on communication equipment—a key lesson from the Ukraine-Russia conflict. The COVID-19 pandemic and escalating geopolitical tensions have prompted nations to reconsider the balance between the benefits of globalization and national security concerns. This context opens opportunities for cooperation with Taiwan and like-minded nations to collectively build manufacturing capacities that enhance security and resilience.

Ultimately, maintaining the normal pace of life is crucial for boosting societal resilience. Ensuring that infrastructure and essential supplies are robust during peacetime is key to sustaining society during crisis, which is essential for sustaining societal resilience.

Conclusion

A society’s willingness for self-defense is not solely about its readiness to fight; it also involves civil society’s mental preparedness and resilience should war unfortunately break out. Fostering Taiwan’s war readiness against China and psychological resilience across civil society is critical for broad-scale preparedness.

Although pandemic governance and warfare are different, Taiwan’s successful management of the pandemic provides insights into potential mobilization strategies for Taiwanese civil society in emergency situations. When there is a national consensus that an invasion by China constitutes a national security crisis, Taiwanese society can unite easily. However, if political parties do not perceive an issue as a national security crisis, it can quickly become a point of political contention, preventing societal unity.

International cooperation with Taiwan, extending beyond military sales, can also cover other war-related areas to bolster civil society’s resilience, including the production of key resources and infrastructure. The COVID-19 experience demonstrated how existing vulnerabilities can be quickly exploited and politicized. Just as the international community supported Taiwan with vaccines to stabilize Taiwanese society during the vaccine crisis, continued cooperation across the economic, military, and political fronts would strengthen Taiwan to enhance its overall ability to resist Chinese coercion.