By Joyu Wang | Photography by Lam Yik Fei for WSJ
NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan -- Occupational therapist Lim Siong-hua arrives for every workday at her hospital carrying a backpack stuffed with books, water and survival gear. She ditches the elevator, climbing 11 flights before descending to her ninth-floor office.
Lim, 37, is training for an invasion. She wants to be prepared and fit enough to get her 3-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son to safety if China starts raining missiles onto Taiwan.
"My biggest priority is being able to grab my kids and run," she said.
Lim is one of a growing cohort of self-defense zealots who have embraced the Taiwan government's mission to get everyone on the island ready for a Chinese attack.
For President Lai Ching-te and his ruling party, Taiwan's survival hinges on its people -- on their preparation for invasion and willingness to fight off China -- as much as the readiness of its military.
But self-defense is far from being embraced as a collective civic duty in Taiwan.
"The high quality of life in Taiwan and the absence of day-to-day dangers create a complacency in the population that will continue to challenge the government's efforts to instill vigilance," wrote Amanda Hsiao and Bonnie Glaser in a recent progress report on the Taiwan government's "whole-of-society defense resilience" campaign.
Add to those obstacles a rocky political landscape where Lai is struggling to get a proposed $40 billion special defense budget to counter China through a legislative deadlock. To some in the opposition, any effort to strengthen Taiwan's defenses -- from buying U.S. missile-defense hardware to teaching children martial arts -- will only push China to follow through on its threat to use force to seize the island.
Taiwan has long been a global flashpoint and its status a subject of controversy. Ever since Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government retreated to the island in 1949, after Mao Zedong's Communist forces won the Chinese Civil War, Beijing has claimed the island as its own territory. Taiwan considers itself a sovereign state but hasn't declared independence -- a red line for Beijing.
Fewer than 8% of Taiwanese support unification with China, according to a long-running survey. More than half want to maintain the status quo as a self-ruled democracy or move toward a declaration of independence, according to the survey by the Election Study Center of National Chengchi University.
The government's national resilience campaign, launched by Lai in 2024, is an evolving project with a long to-do list. The civil-defense bureaucracy needs to be streamlined, disaster response tested, and the medical system is overstretched, even in peacetime. Internet arrives via subsea cables susceptible to sabotage and most energy is imported, two areas where diversification is a long-term goal.
At the same time, a surge in military intimidation by China in recent years and a push by Taiwan's government have spurred more civilians to consider how to respond to the threat. The example set by the people of Ukraine in holding off an invasion by its much larger neighbor, Russia, has also been taken as an inspiration.
Some in Taiwan have pivoted toward survivalism, packing go-bags, stockpiling daily essentials and learning ham radio to prepare for internet blackouts.
Others have flocked to civil-defense groups, which have sprouted up in cities around Taiwan in recent years.
Some of these nongovernmental organizations have provided advanced training programs to thousands of people around Taiwan; others are small, neighborhood clubs that meet regularly for wargames or survival training, spurred in part by the threat of natural disaster.
One of the best known civil-defense groups, Kuma Academy, whose founders include a ruling party lawmaker, says its aim is to "instill a prewar mentality" in civilians. Its curriculum ranges from basic first aid to countering Chinese information warfare.
A smaller civil-defense group in Tainan, a southern city where the roar of jet fighters from a local airfield provides a frequent soundtrack, has two main projects: improving emergency shelters and developing a wireless communication system that would work even if China cuts Taiwan off from the internet.
"We are assuming that war will definitely happen in 2027," said group founder Hsieh Chang-ying. Taiwan is racing to build up its deterrence before China decides it has the resources to invade, said Hsieh, casting civil-defense efforts like his as a warning to Beijing that Taiwanese won't surrender.
Hsieh said the offices responsible for managing the shelters are understaffed and would be overwhelmed in a war. He and his team of around two dozen, which is independent of the government, are developing kits with guides, signage and registration forms to enable local groups to operate shelters until authorities can take over.
Tainan's government said its shelter capacity now covers 15.6% of the population -- in a city of 1.85 million -- surpassing the 10% national mandate. While local officials staff these sites, the city plans to enlist volunteers and evacuees to help run shelters, it said.
Hsieh's group is also building a wireless network using Meshtastic, an open-source technology that uses off-grid texting devices, for civilians to communicate even if China cuts the subsea cables.
While Taiwan's president has urged everyone to be prepared, supporters of his Democratic Progressive Party are more likely to listen -- even in packing go-bags for a natural disaster, according to a survey codesigned by Austin Horng-En Wang, a political-science professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
With readiness often linked to political outlook, an epic political defeat gave a jolt to Lai's civil-defense push.
Voting last summer killed a monthslong campaign to unseat over 30 opposition legislators, who were accused by the recall effort's backers of stalling military spending and favoring Beijing.
These activists, many of them supporters of the ruling party, said the loss meant that Taiwan's legislature would be softer on China.
The result drew more people into what was once a niche, male-dominated civil-defense arena of preppers and military enthusiasts, said Liu Yu-hsi, a media economics professor at Taiwan's Shih Hsin University who is a member of a presidential committee under the whole-of-society resilience project.
"People are shifting their energy from political activities into building resilience," said Liu.
One such person was Lee Tse-chung, an activist in Taipei who led a recall campaign with a core team of about 10 people. After the campaign collapsed in July, Lee's group shifted its focus to preparing to defend Taiwan.
Lee said the number of people participating in the group's civil-defense training has grown to around 400, most between the ages of 30 and 45. Course registrations fill up in hours.
On a recent Saturday, a few dozen people gathered in a community center classroom for a workshop called "The Home Fortress."
The students took part in a survival game designed by Lee and other civil-defense group leaders that simulated scenarios before, during and after a Chinese invasion.
Participants were assigned to different family groups and used a government civil-defense handbook as a reference.
Their goal: to determine what to stockpile before the invasion and assess whether they could outlast a Chinese attack until allies arrive to rescue Taiwan.
During the simulation, an air-raid siren sounded and everyone sought cover beneath the tables. Cutoffs to their electricity and water supplies forced them to consider whether to risk their lives running to a shelter for supplies.
By the end of the game, a handful of people had "starved to death" or were "killed."
Write to Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 19, 2026 19:00 ET (23:00 GMT)
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