The step was decided, but the stop was sudden. On Monday afternoon, Tseng Yu-Chen had to slow down when he left Yongchun subway station in the east of the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, at the sight of the policeman on duty preventing travelers from continuing on their way. Then she decided to sit on the steps to wait.
Outside, for a few minutes, time seemed to have stopped, with sidewalks entirely deserted by their pedestrians and, above all, a boulevard usually congested with cars and scooters and on which traffic has, one shot, completely gone.
“I learned by chance yesterday that there was going to be a civil defense exercise today. I couldn’t remember the time,” the 20-something girl said smiling, while lighting a cigarette to pass the time. “This year, we seem to be taking it a little more seriously than in the past. And that might not be so bad. China is not very far from us, just across the strait, and it has never been so threatening. »
Sirens howling over the city, police whistling to force passers-by to speed up their pace to take cover in their homes or in one of the many anti-aircraft shelters identified by the government throughout Taiwan…
On Monday afternoon, Taipei was instantly transformed into a deserted city for 30 minutes during Wan An, an air attack preparation exercise that is played annually across Taiwan. The Asian island has lived for years under the threat of a Chinese attack which claims its sovereignty over this autonomous and democratic territory of 23 million inhabitants.
And the exercise, often approached with lightness by the Taiwanese since its birth 45 years ago, took, five months after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, a completely different scale.
“It is certainly the most important exercise in our history, drops in an interview at the To have to Hsien-Sen Lin, director of the Department of Political Science Institute at National Taiwan Normal University. It is a way of strengthening our awareness of the current geopolitical situation, but also of measuring the effectiveness of our internal safety net. The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the outlook. The Taiwanese government fears that it will also reinforce China’s intentions to invade Taiwan as well.
Begun in the north of the country on Monday, the life-size simulation of an air attack by China, located less than 126 km from the main island of Taiwan, will also be held in the center of the territory on Tuesday, then in the south in the current of the week. It is accompanied by military maneuvers which began last June and will continue until the end of the summer.
“The concern over an attack on Taiwan by China has been more and more perceptible around me since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, summarizes Carl Pelletier, Taiwanese of Quebec origin met last Saturday in the Kaohsiung region, in the south of the island. Many have the impression that we will be the next to suffer the attack of an authoritarian regime. And in this context, the idea of preparing for a war now becomes more and more tangible”.
It is that Xi Jinping, Chinese President, has hardened his tone in recent years against Taiwan, and is increasing his verbal attacks against the current administration of President Tsai Ing-Wen. She was elected in 2016 under the banner of the Democratic Progressive Party (the DPP, as they say here) which considers Taiwan to be an independent and sovereign state.
Between hope and fear
“Taiwan’s sovereignty is obvious,” said Wong Ang, surrounded by retired friends who play xiangqi – Chinese chess – and passed through a park awash in dense humidity and summer heat last Saturday in Taichung, on the west coast of the island. “China can try to invade us. But we are not afraid. We are a strong country with the support of the international community. Besides, it is not ethical to invade a small country like ours”.
“China will do it anyway, thinks Wang Tai-Yu, a septuagenarian who came to sell his papayas in a market in the small port city of Tainan. It’s sad to think about that, because all we ask here is to live in peace, as we have always done. But we no longer have the choice to prepare for that”.
The director of the CIA, Bill Burns, tends to agree with him. Last week, at the Aspen Security Forum, he said the war in Ukraine and Russia’s inability to bring down the capital of the former Soviet republic had not dampened Xi Jinping’s desire to assert China’s control over Taiwan. And to prevent this young democracy from continuing its development just a stone’s throw from the Chinese coast. “It probably affects less whether Chinese leaders might choose in a few years to use force to control Taiwan, but more how and when they will do so.”
Seen from the capital, Taipei, the scenarios are numerous, ranging from a strong gesture that the autocratic Chinese leader could make by imposing his presence on the island next fall, in the wake of the important national congress that the Chinese Communist Party will hold in November, a military intervention which could be played from 2027, when the Chinese army will have sufficiently advanced its process of modernization still in progress. This is to avoid getting bogged down in conflict, as Russia is currently doing in Ukraine.
“Since the overthrow of democracy in Hong Kong in 2019, then now with Ukraine, the Chinese threat to Taiwan has become a little more serious, says young political activist Lee Tzu Tung, met a few hours before the start of Wan An. , Monday, in a cafe in Taipei, even if we are not yet fully awake to something that is becoming less and less hypothetical. Taiwan is a bit like a frog in warming water. So, it’s good news to see that we are looking a little better to prepare ourselves and get out of the water before it’s too late”.
Prepare for the worst
Last week, during a press conference held in the Kuangchu district, in the east of the city, the deputy mayor of Taipei, Huang Sha-Shan, recalled that the capital would be the first target of a attack and invited citizens to identify the shelter closest to their homes. Metro stations are one of them.
Currently, there are nearly 105,000 in Taiwan, according to the official Taiwanese government news agency, the Central News Agency (CNA), enough to protect 86 million people, i.e. more than three times the current population of the island.
Last March, Taiwan also strengthened another national defense mobilization and rescue exercise, the Min An, held annually to prepare the emergency services in the event of major natural disasters, by now adding a component dealing with a catastrophe caused by a war.
“The Wan An reminds the population that an air attack from Taiwan is now possible, even if it remains complex to set up for China, says Lin Cheng-yi, security researcher at the Academia. Sinica from Taipei. It also indicates that our national defense cannot only rely on the government, and that civil defense as well as the psychological defense of citizens also play an important role in Taiwan’s security.
At the entrance to the metro entrance, Tseng Yu-Chen, she knew that the preparation exercise had above all stolen 30 minutes of her day from her on Monday, but she preferred to remain a philosopher. “It’s a serious day, but not worrying,” she said, while waiting, like several other Taiwanese around her, for the sound of 2 p.m. sirens accompanied by a government warning message. on his phone, announcing the end of the exercise. “The Chinese threat is becoming a little more real. But if the war also becomes war, it will be much worse for us to live than today”.
With the collaboration of Alisa Chih Yun Chen
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.Le Devoir.