When Taiwanese microchip mogul Robert Tsao announced his latest multi-million-dollar venture, he made a bold promise to safeguard his homeland and the future of civilisation.
Donning a bulletproof vest, the 76-year-old entrepreneur unveiled his plan to train 3.3 million “civilian warriors” to defend against a potential invasion.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sharpened its rhetoric in recent years and increased pressure on its self-governed neighbour, refusing to rule out the use of force to achieve so-called “reunification”.
“China will surely be reunified, and all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping in his New Year address on Sunday.
So with increased military activity in the Taiwan Strait against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine, many ordinary citizens are growing more wary of an escalation by China, and some are taking matters into their own hands.
In the 15 months since Mr Tsao’s pledge to bankroll training efforts at the Kuma Academy, the Taipei-based organisation has seen demand for its civil defence courses soar.
Organisers say the majority of participants are women and young parents who are worried about caring for their children in the event of an invasion or blockade.
“They don’t want their children to face warfare — they want to survive,” Kuma Academy co-founder Puma Shen said.
Daily life in Taiwan is perfectly normal and it Is generally considered impolite or unpopular to discuss the looming threat among friends.
Even those taking part in these courses can sometimes be reluctant to share the full extent of their concerns — but these everyday citizens are empowering themselves for an unknown future.
The billionaire backer
Tech tycoon Mr Tsao is the founder of United Microelectronics Corp, one of the largest producers of semiconductor chips in the world, but he has an unexpected history for someone throwing so much money at the war effort.
His family moved to Taiwan around the time Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) forces took control after World War II.
The Taiwan he grew up in was ruled under martial law by dictator Chiang Kai-shek, who led a brutal crackdown on his communist opponents over decades that are now known as the White Terror period.
“Later I realised the KMT was right about the Communist Party and how brutal and barbarous it is,” Mr Tsao told the Financial Times in 2022.
After finishing his studies at National Taiwan University, Mr Tsao joined the government’s Industrial Technology Research Institute, which gave rise to Taiwan’s booming semiconductor industry.
Mr Tsao founded his own company, UMC, in 1980, and expanded as China began to open up in the 1990s.
He began investing his riches in an impressive rare art collection, including a glass vase from the Qianlong period worth more than $39 million.
After Mr Tsao and a fellow UMC executive were indicted in Taiwan over alleged illegal investments to set up production lines in China, he renounced his Taiwanese citizenship and moved to Singapore.
He was an active supporter of so-called peaceful “reunification”, even taking out ads in major Taiwanese newspapers calling for a referendum on the matter.
But last year he reapplied for his Taiwanese citizenship, explaining that he had had a change of heart after witnessing Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong.
“It showed the true face of the Chinese Communist Party, a hooligan regime conducting violence against ordinary people,” he told the Taipei Times.
“It really made me angry. So I decided to never go to China, Hong Kong or Macau again.”
He told Radio Free Asia he wanted to die in Taiwan, ideally “laughing while watching the fall of the CCP”.
“The people of Taiwan need a morale boost … so I gave up my Singaporean citizenship and came back here to be with everyone,” he said.
“I had to come back; if I’m telling everyone to oppose the CCP, I can hardly skulk overseas myself.”
Funding a ‘civilian warrior’ force
Last September, Mr Tsao pledged 1 billion Taiwanese dollars ($50 million) to build a civilian warrior force through organisations including the Kuma Academy, with a portion set aside for 300,000 specialised marksmen.
He has also discussed plans to cooperate with the local industry to produce low-cost drones.
According to a US Defense Department report on China’s military developments, the People’s Liberation Army massively outnumbers Taiwan’s forces on every measure.
China has more than 2 million active personnel compared to Taiwan’s 170,000 troops, as well as five times as many tanks and six times as many fighter aircraft.
Taiwan keeps a watchful eye over China’s activity in the Taiwan Strait, but there are limited resources available to concerned citizens.
Civilians are required to take part in air-raid drills, but beyond that there is little publicly available education outside of school, university and compulsory military service.
Taiwan’s government has acknowledged the current system is inadequate to counter the increasing threat from China — especially in the case of an all-out attack — and is increasing compulsory military service from four months to one year for men over 18, starting next year.
One local man who signed up for an entry-level course at the Kuma Academy told the ABC he completed his conscription more than a decade ago, but felt his 12 months of mandatory service was not enough.
“[It] isn’t very comprehensive … honestly, there wasn’t much training. We only touched a rifle, and it was an old model,” said Mr Lin, who asked to go by his surname only.
He and his wife recently welcomed their first child. On top of the usual anxieties of any new parent, the threat of war looms large.
“What if they attack? What should I do with my child? Where should I go for shelter? Or should I hide with my relatives somewhere?” Mr Lin said.
He and his wife joined about 30 others in a basic course learning fundamental first aid, what modern warfare looked like — including propaganda and disinformation — and how to prepare their home and family for an evacuation.
“Only by gaining a comprehensive understanding can I start preparing,” he said.
Kuma Academy co-founder Puma Shen, who is running in the upcoming Taiwanese elections to be a legislator for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, says the courses are designed to build resilience and provide practical information about how to stay safe in the event of a crisis.
“I think it’s all about mental preparedness … the willingness to fight and resistance is more about all these practical skills,” he said.
Existing survival guides widely panned for providing impractical advice
Taiwan’s military developed an instructional pamphlet earlier this year on how to survive in a war scenario, but it was widely criticised for providing unrealistic and impractical advice.
Its first version included QR codes to scan for key information such as bomb shelter locations and access to food and supplies, despite the likelihood that any action from China would include a disruption to communications systems.
The regular severing of communication cables to Taiwan’s outlying Matsu Islands near China’s east coast — even if unintentional — has heightened concerns about what may happen in a blockade or invasion.
A second version of the government’s guide was released in June, with officials spruiking it as an updated edition with far more information about civil defence and how to survive in emergencies.
Independent media outlet Watchout has published its own civilian defence handbook, inspired by similar manuals developed by European nations following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“In Taiwan people tend to associate military and warfare purely with soldiers. Ordinary civilians seem to lack a sense of responsibility,” editor Roger Hsiao told the ABC.
“But these handbooks [from Latvia and Lithuania] actually emphasise a concept: [If a war breaks out], every individual is needed to assist.
“The extent to which each person can contribute varies. For the average person, what can you do?
“Latvia’s handbook directly tells you: ‘You can choose to resist … you can engage in civil disobedience resistance, you can undertake actions that support state resistance … you can gather intelligence and report it to our country’s intelligence agency.'”
While his is much shorter than the government pamphlet, Mr Hsiao said he went to some lengths to create a guide that would be accessible and actively encourage people to educate themselves on a difficult topic.
Rather than tackling war directly, it uses comics and introductory content to ease readers in.
“Taiwanese people have a certain reluctance or fear when it comes to discussing war,” he said.
“What we want to convey is that this is something we feel the government [and] the entire society should contemplate.
“War today might not unfold as it did in the past … nowadays, hybrid warfare blurs the lines between peacetime and wartime.”
The online war has already begun
After doing the one-day basics course at Kuma Academy, participants are encouraged to choose an area to specialise in, such as medical training.
Aly Chang, 73, decided to enrol in an advanced course on gathering open-source intelligence to dispel misinformation.
“The threat that concerns me the most is [China’s] extensive efforts to engage in disinformation warfare,” she said.
“The spread of false information has been on the rise … it does create a sense of unease.
“For instance, in our chat group, sometimes there might be fake news – I will point it out without hesitation.”
For the last decade, Taiwan has been the number one recipient of disinformation in the world.
Democracy watchdog Freedom House noted in its 2022 report that the CCP had increased its efforts to influence Taiwanese discourse during the previous year.
Tactics include direct disinformation campaigns spreading messages to discredit Taiwan’s government, and more covert media partnerships such as inviting Taiwanese journalists and influencers on sponsored or subsidised press trips to promote China-friendly narratives.
Ahead of the upcoming election, allegations of disinformation and interference have been common.
Taiwan FactCheck Centre identified fake videos and audio clips of presidential candidates, Taiwanese prosecutors are investigating local officials over alleged Beijing-sponsored trips to China, and a reporter has been arrested for allegedly publishing fake opinion polls directed by the CCP.
Mr Shen, who also runs a disinformation-monitoring organisation called Doublethink Lab, believes this will be a key plank of Taiwan’s defence against its giant neighbour.
“China is really good at spreading disinformation and trying to strike our morale to try to make sure that we would surrender,” he said.
“If everyone is mentally prepared for the warfare, it means that we won’t surrender [early on] during … the warfare, even for the first two weeks, for the first three months. I think that’s something we need.”