Dressed in military camouflage with an assault rifle ready, “prof” Yeh peers from behind a vehicle in a parking lot outside Taipei, scanning his surroundings and waiting for a signal to advance.
Yeh actually works in marketing, and his weapon is a replica — but he is spending the weekend attending an urban warfare workshop to prepare for what he sees as the very real threat of a Chinese invasion.
“The Russia-Ukraine war is a big reason why I came to this workshop,” 47-year-old Yeh, whose call sign during training is prof”, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) during a break between sessions.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine at the end of February, he gave shape to the darkest fears of many Taiwanese.
The nation lives under constant threat from authoritarian China, which views it as part of its territory and has pledged to take it one day.
However, the war in Ukraine has also inspired Yeh.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
The resilience of Ukrainian forces has given him hope that with the right tactics, Taiwan might also have a chance defending itself against its much mightier neighbor.
He is not alone — the organizers of the urban combat course say their students have nearly quadrupled since February. Firearms and first aid courses have also seen increased enrolment.
Disquiet over China was brewing in Taiwan long before the Russian invasion.
Max Chiang, CEO of the company that organizes the workshops, said there has been “a heightened sense of crisis” among Taiwanese since 2020, when Chinese warplanes began making regular incursions into the nation’s air defense identification zone.
About 380 sorties were recorded that year — a number that more than doubled last year and is on track to do so again this year, an AFP database showed.
China comprehensively outnumbers Taiwan’s militarily, with more than 1 million ground force personnel to Taiwan’s 88,000, as well as 6,300 tanks compared with 800 and 1,600 fighter jets to 400 jets, US Department of Defense data showed.
However, Ukraine has provided a practical blueprint for how to make that disparity matter less. It has vividly demonstrated how fighting for control of cities can be difficult and costly for attacking forces — and most of Taiwan’s 23 million people live in urban areas.
As Yeh and his 15 teammates run in staggered column formation across the parking lot, stooping behind dilapidated buildings and vehicles to simulate attacks on enemy positions, they are trying to put some of the lessons learned in Ukraine’s devastated cities into practice.
“The best defense is offense,” Yeh said as instructors in bright reflective vests stand nearby taking notes.
“To put it bluntly, annihilate the enemy and stop any enemy advances,” he said.
In a warehouse beside the parking lot, 34-year-old Ruth Lam is learning to fire a handgun for the first time.
Lam, who works at an emergency vehicle lights manufacturer, said that most of her European clients had told her there would not be a war in Ukraine.
“But it happened,” she said.
She is hoping that knowing how to handle a gun might protect her and her family if China were to start a war, and is planning to continue target practice with friends.
“Prepare your umbrella before it rains,” she said. “We don’t know when things are going to happen.”
A survey conducted in May showed that 61.4 percent of respondents said they were willing to take up arms in the event of an invasion.
“The will of the Ukrainian people to fight against aggressors has increased the resolve of Taiwanese to safeguard their homeland,” Taiwan NextGen Foundation chief executive officer Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) said.
Lin Ping-yu, a former paratrooper who came to the urban warfare class “to brush up on his combat skills,” concurs.
“Only when a country’s citizens have the strong will and determination to protect their land can they convince the international community to come help them,” the 38-year-old said.
Yeh believes it is a question of when, not if, they would be called to put their new skills into action.
Citing the example of Hong Kong, where Beijing has moved to consolidate its grip in the past few years, he simply said: “Taiwan is next.”
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
RSS