Amid China’s escalating military harassment of Taiwan, a teaser released on July 23 of the new TV series Zero Day (零日攻擊), a local production portraying a Chinese attack on Taiwan, attracted more than 1 million views in a week, sparking an emotional response and discussions across the nation.
Partly funded by the government and scheduled to air next year, ‘Zero Day’ depicts a Chinese warplane disappearing in the Taiwan Strait and China using the search as an excuse to mount a naval blockade of Taiwan and launch an invasion. The 17-minute trailer shows clips how Beijing could increase its choke hold on Taiwan in the prelude to war, including sparking a financial crash, cyberattacks disrupting infrastructure, sabotage by Beijing’s collaborators, foreigners fleeing, proliferation of fake news and hacking of mass broadcasting systems, with a Chinese news anchor calling on Taiwanese to accept the “peaceful reunification of the motherland.”
The preview has resonated with people and given them a sense of urgency. “We are finally beginning to see problems that many Taiwanese dare not face,” one viewer said, while another said: “It is heavy, because it is possible.”
The trailer has also provoked anxiety and criticism from pro-China politicians and groups, with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers calling the TV show government propaganda to amplify China’s military threats. In this, they are echoing China’s state media, which has accused Taipei of “spreading fear” and has censored all references to Zero Day on social media.
Ironically, the KMT — like the Chinese Communist Party — is an expert on spreading propaganda, honed by decades of governance during the Martial Law period. The public was then forced to watch movies and TV programs produced by state-funded companies to promote patriotism and fight the “evil” Chinese communists. However, the party has since turned its back on those values, and now parrots Being’s call for “peaceful reunification” and avoiding war with the authoritarian regime across the Strait.
Taiwan, especially under the Democratic Progressive Party administration, has long faced difficulties in increasing public awareness about the Chinese threat. While it hopes to raise a sense of alarm to encourage the public to support national defense efforts, it does not want people to end up feeling hopeless about the inevitability of war or defeat.
Zero Day was one of the proposals the Ministry of Culture received for its program on promoting local cultural productions. It received the lowest subsidy among the approved projects and was the only one that dared to touch on the sensitive topic of war that most Taiwanese avoid, virtually guaranteeing that it would be banned in the Chinese market.
“In Taiwan, people think about it [war] all the time, but hardly ever talk about it,” series director Lo Ging-zim (羅景壬) said in an interview. “However, if we do not make that fear tangible, we are going to have a hard time getting people to talk about it.”
Lo added that he hoped the series would create a sense of urgency among the public who have become desensitized to the Chinese threat after decades of facing such pressure.
The government has in recent years drastically increased the national defense budget. President William Lai (賴清德) has pledged to further spend a record NT$647 billion (US$20.03 billion) next year, up 6 percent year-on-year, showing the government’s commitment to enhancing national defense. However, the bigger challenge remains raising public awareness about the Chinese threat and the greater danger of its infiltration of Taiwanese democracy.
To avoid a war, people must know the enemy and be prepared. Zero Day has ignited a spark illuminating tensions across the Strait. We need to strengthen collective vigilance and our determination to defend our country.
A nation has several pillars of national defense, among them are military strength, energy and food security, and national unity. Military strength is very much on the forefront of the debate, while several recent editorials have dealt with energy security. National unity and a sense of shared purpose — especially while a powerful, hostile state is becoming increasingly menacing — are problematic, and would continue to be until the nation’s schizophrenia is properly managed. The controversy over the past few days over former navy lieutenant commander Lu Li-shih’s (呂禮詩) usage of the term “our China” during an interview about his attendance
Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), the son of former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee Politburo member and former Chongqing Municipal Communist Party secretary Bo Xilai (薄熙來), used his British passport to make a low-key entry into Taiwan on a flight originating in Canada. He is set to marry the granddaughter of former political heavyweight Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政), the founder of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital in Yilan County’s Luodong Township (羅東). Bo Xilai is a former high-ranking CCP official who was once a challenger to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for the chairmanship of the CCP. That makes Bo Guagua a bona fide “third-generation red”
US president-elect Donald Trump earlier this year accused Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) of “stealing” the US chip business. He did so to have a favorable bargaining chip in negotiations with Taiwan. During his first term from 2017 to 2021, Trump demanded that European allies increase their military budgets — especially Germany, where US troops are stationed — and that Japan and South Korea share more of the costs for stationing US troops in their countries. He demanded that rich countries not simply enjoy the “protection” the US has provided since the end of World War II, while being stingy with
Historically, in Taiwan, and in present-day China, many people advocate the idea of a “great Chinese nation.” It is not worth arguing with extremists to say that the so-called “great Chinese nation” is a fabricated political myth rather than an academic term. Rather, they should read the following excerpt from Chinese writer Lin Yutang’s (林語堂) book My Country and My People: “It is also inevitable that I should offend many writers about China, especially my own countrymen and great patriots. These great patriots — I have nothing to do with them, for their god is not my god, and their patriotism is