# Taiwan Defends Its Preparations Against China, Rejects the Word Provocation

> On July 7, 2026, in a conference room in Taipei, Lin Fei-fan, deputy secretary-general of Taiwan's National Security Council, delivered a line

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Profile
- Published: 2026-07-07
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/taiwan-defend-ses-preparatifs-face-a-la-chine-refuse-le-mot-provocation

## Introduction: a sentence that flips the accusation

### A senior official breaks the diplomatic silence

On **July 7, 2026**, in a conference room in **Taipei**, **Lin Fei-fan**, deputy secretary-general of Taiwan's National **Security** Council, delivered a line that leaves no room for the usual diplomatic hedging. According to remarks reported by **Reuters**, he said: "People often frame **Taiwan**'s preparations as a **provocation** toward the other side." Then he flipped the accusation with surgical precision.

"I want to take this opportunity to tell everyone: all of **China**'s preparations have a clear purpose, **military** aggression and outward expansion," he declared. This was no slip of the tongue. It was a deliberate, documented position, repeated before an international forum, at a moment when **Beijing** keeps ramping up shows of force around the island.

### The backdrop of a methodical escalation

This statement comes after months of growing Chinese air and naval incursions into Taiwan's air **defense** identification zone. The government of **Taiwan**, led by President **Lai Ching-te**, has launched a **resilience** effort described as "whole of society," mobilizing civilians, reservists and critical infrastructure into a comprehensive defensive posture.

**Lin Fei-fan** pressed a verifiable factual contrast: "**Taiwan** today is not flying any planes or sending any **warships** to intrude into the other side's airspace or waters. The one provoking regional order is none other than **China**."

*I'll say it plainly: this rhetorical reversal is not an empty communications stunt. It rests on verifiable facts — it's Beijing sending bombers, not Taipei sending fighters toward the mainland. Refusing to clearly name who is attacking and who is defending is already accepting the propaganda of the stronger side.*

## The doomsday scenario rehearsed in Nantou

### An unprecedented closed-door exercise

Three days before Lin Fei-fan's statement, an exclusive **Reuters** investigation published on **July 3, 2026**, revealed the details of a simulation **exercise** held in **Nantou**, bringing together more than **370 government and military officials**. It was the first closed-door exercise of its kind ever organized by **Taiwan**, combining several layers of simultaneous crisis.

The scenario imagined a Chinese naval **blockade**, a magnitude-**6.8** earthquake with a simulated death toll of twelve people, sabotage of undersea cables and critical infrastructure, hijacked television broadcasts, a bank run and civil unrest, before culminating in a full **invasion** scenario.

### A generation learning to defend itself

**Chi Lien-cheng**, one of the officials involved in the **exercise**, summed up the mood of the moment: "Our adversary is right at our door, on the other side of the **Taiwan** Strait. It's very close." He added: "If you don't defend your own country, who else will? I think people are starting to understand that."

The **exercise** included a seven-hour tabletop session and field maneuvers, including a simulated takedown of a Chinese drone threatening a power plant, as well as the setup of food-rationing stations. A drone-attack scenario left **75 officials** classified as missing within the exercise, a figure that illustrates just how seriously planners are taking the threat.

*Watching a government simulate its own bank run and the disappearance of 75 of its officials is anything but theater. It's proof that the Chinese threat is being taken seriously, not as a public-relations drill but as a cold rehearsal of a scenario deemed plausible.*

## China's response, a ballet of bombers

### A joint combat patrol during the exercise

While **Taiwan** simulated its **defense**, **China** staged its own show of force. According to **Reuters**, the People's Liberation Army conducted a "joint combat readiness patrol" involving more than **22 military aircraft**, including **H-6** bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons, at the very moment the Taiwanese **exercise** was underway.

This timing is likely no coincidence. It illustrates a strategy of constant pressure, where every Taiwanese defensive move is immediately followed by a Chinese show of force meant to remind everyone who holds, on paper, the raw **military** superiority in the region.

### Beijing accuses Lai of warmongering

The spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office, **Zhu Fenglian**, responded by accusing President **Lai Ching-te** of deliberately escalating tensions, calling him a "destroyer of cross-strait peace, creator of crises... instigator of **war**." This Chinese rhetoric seeks to flip the narrative, presenting Taiwan's defensive measures as the true source of regional instability.

The Taiwan Affairs Office did not directly respond to **Reuters**'s questions about Lin Fei-fan's statement, a silence that, implicitly, leaves the burden of proof squarely on the Taiwanese side — a country that documents its simulations while the other settles for rhetorical accusations.

*Accusing Taiwan of being the instigator while H-6 bombers fly near its coast amounts to a moral inversion I refuse to accept without naming it. It isn't journalistic balance to ignore who holds the nuclear weapons and who is running food-rationing drills.*

## Lessons drawn from Ukraine and the Middle East

### Direct learning from other wars

According to **Reuters**, Taiwanese planners explicitly drew on lessons observed during the **war** in **Ukraine** and conflicts in the **Middle East** to design their **resilience** **exercise**. This influence is no accident: it reflects a clear-eyed recognition that modern warfare is no longer confined to the battlefield, but also spans disinformation, infrastructure sabotage and **civilian** resilience.

The relative success of Ukrainian resistance against a supposedly overwhelming Russian army has clearly fed the Taiwanese conviction that a well-prepared **defense**, backed by a mobilized society, can seriously complicate an aggressor's calculations, even one vastly superior in numbers.

### The fiction that anticipated reality

The 2025 Taiwanese television series titled **"Zero Day Attack,"** which depicts a fictional Chinese **invasion**, was cited as the cultural backdrop to this national awakening. **Lee I-yuan**, a 75-year-old neighborhood chief who took part in the **exercise**, warned: "If the other side attacks, they will certainly use AI to spread false information."

That statement, coming from an ordinary citizen mobilized in a government **exercise**, shows just how far awareness of hybrid **warfare** — disinformation, generative AI, opinion manipulation — has spread beyond Taiwan's military circles and reached the **civilian** population itself.

*That lessons from Ukraine would travel all the way to Taipei should surprise no one. What strikes me is the speed: what was a distant war in Eastern Europe has become, in barely four years, a survival manual studied methodically on the other side of the world.*

## The strategic calculus behind deterrence

### Making invasion costly rather than impossible

**Lin Fei-fan** summed up the deterrent logic behind these preparations: "The message to our adversary is clear: once they know Taiwanese society is prepared, they will have to think very carefully before launching such a costly **war** against **Taiwan** — a war that might not succeed." This formulation does not claim to make an **invasion** impossible, only costly enough to discourage its launch.

This is a doctrine of **deterrence** by cost, not by certainty of victory. It implicitly acknowledges the asymmetry in raw **military** **power** between **Taiwan** and **China**, while betting on combined civilian and military preparation to tilt **Beijing**'s calculus toward restraint.

### "If we don't act today"

**Lin Fei-fan** also warned: "If we don't act today, strength will not suddenly appear tomorrow." That line captures the urgency felt by Taiwanese authorities in the face of a **strategic** window judged to be narrowing, especially as the symbolic **2027** deadline set by **Beijing** for the **modernization** of its armed forces approaches.

He concluded with a statement worth quoting in full: "There would be immediate peace if **China** abandoned its military ambitions toward **Taiwan**. But if Taiwan gives up its ability to defend itself now, there will be no more Taiwan left in the world."

*That closing line captures, better than any outside analysis could, the real existential stakes. This isn't hollow rhetoric: it's the cold description of an equation in which only one of the two sides risks disappearing if the balance of power tips the wrong way.*

## The symbolic and material weight of civilian preparation

### A mobilization that goes beyond the military

The **Nantou** **exercise** was not a purely **military** drill. It involved scenarios of bank runs, food rationing and health-crisis management following a simulated earthquake, illustrating a total **defense** approach that engages the entire civilian state apparatus, not just the armed forces.

This "whole of society" approach promoted by President **Lai Ching-te** rests on the idea that a nation's **resilience** against an **invasion** or a **blockade** is not measured solely in tanks or missiles, but in the collective capacity to keep essential functions running — food, energy, communications, public order — under the strain of a prolonged crisis.

### The doubt that lingers despite preparation

The drone-attack scenario that left 75 officials listed as missing is a reminder that even the best-prepared **exercise** cannot fully eliminate the uncertainty of an actual conflict. Planners themselves acknowledge that simulation, however rigorous, never replaces the test of real combat.

What the **exercise** cannot simulate is the actual reaction of a **civilian** population confronted with a genuine **invasion**, nor the lasting strength of the international alliances on which **Taiwan** implicitly relies for its long-term survival.

*What the exercise doesn't say is whether Taiwan's Western allies would actually act in the event of an invasion. Taiwanese civilian preparation is admirable, but it cannot substitute for a clear commitment of international support that, today, remains largely mired in strategic ambiguity.*

## Washington's silence and strategic ambiguity

### An alliance that never quite says its name

The United States has for decades maintained a policy known as "strategic ambiguity" toward **Taiwan**, refusing to explicitly state whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese **invasion**. This ambiguity, originally designed to deter both **Beijing** from attacking and **Taipei** from declaring formal independence, is now being questioned by experts who see it as a dangerous source of uncertainty.

In this context, Taiwan's self-reliant preparation takes on added meaning: it does not depend solely on outside promises, but builds a capacity for resistance that would exist regardless of how far Western allies are ultimately willing to commit at the critical moment.

### Deterrence that must stand credible on its own

This is precisely the logic behind why **Taiwan** invests so heavily in **civilian** **resilience** exercises rather than relying solely on a hypothetical outside intervention. The most reliable **deterrence** remains the one the island can demonstrate for itself, independent of Washington's shifting calculations.

This forced **strategic** self-reliance points to a reality few Western leaders dare state outright: at the decisive moment, **Taiwan** may have to count first on its own preparation before any outside reinforcement arrives.

*I believe American strategic ambiguity, useful in the 1970s, is becoming dangerously obsolete against a China that no longer hides its intentions. Taiwan is right to prepare as though it might have to hold the line alone, because that may be exactly what happens.*

## Undersea cables, an invisible lifeline

### A vulnerability rarely discussed publicly

The undersea cable sabotage scenario included in the **Nantou** **exercise** points to a **strategic** vulnerability often overlooked in public discussions of a potential Chinese **invasion**: Taiwan's dependence on a limited number of undersea telecommunications cables to stay connected to the rest of the world.

Earlier incidents of damage to undersea cables near **Taiwan**, attributed to vessels linked to **China**, have already fueled concerns among Taiwanese authorities on this front. A coordinated sabotage of this infrastructure could isolate the island informationally before any kinetic conflict even begins.

### Disinformation as a weapon of hybrid warfare

Lee I-yuan's warning about the likely use of artificial intelligence to spread false information in the event of an attack ties into this broader concern: an adversary seeking to isolate **Taiwan** would first cut its reliable communication lines before flooding the remaining information space with manipulated content.

This combination of physical sabotage and information manipulation represents exactly the kind of hybrid **warfare** that **Western** democracies have already witnessed, on a smaller scale, in the context of Russia's war against **Ukraine**.

*The vulnerability of undersea cables seems underestimated in Western media coverage of the Taiwan question. There is plenty of talk about carriers and missiles, far too little about the digital fragility that could precede any open military confrontation.*

## The Ukrainian precedent as warning and as hope

### What Kyiv has proven despite everything

Ukrainian resistance to the Russian **invasion** launched in 2022 has demonstrated that a smaller nation, backed by determined **civilian** mobilization and substantial international support, can inflict considerable costs on a supposedly overwhelming military aggressor. This precedent directly feeds Taiwan's preparation doctrine.

But the analogy has its limits, ones Taiwanese planners know well: **Taiwan** is an island, with no land border allowing continuous resupply of the kind **Ukraine** enjoys via Poland and other **NATO** neighbors. A Chinese naval **blockade** could prove far harder to work around than a partial land blockade.

### Islandhood, a unique logistical challenge

This geographic constraint explains why the naval **blockade** scenario occupies a central place in Taiwanese exercises, even more than a direct **invasion** scenario. A prolonged blockade, without requiring an armed landing, could be enough to economically strangle the island and force a political capitulation without a massive direct **military** confrontation.

It is this geographic reality that makes **civilian** preparation — food stockpiles, energy, banking **resilience** — just as central as strictly **military** preparation in Taiwan's current defensive doctrine.

*Unlike a frontal invasion, a blockade doesn't grab headlines the same way, but it could be Beijing's most formidable weapon. Strangling an island without firing a shot would, in terms of international image, be far harder to condemn than an armed landing.*

## The economic dimension of a potential crisis

### Taiwan, a linchpin of global semiconductors

Beyond the direct geopolitical stakes, **Taiwan** occupies a central position in the global supply chain for advanced semiconductors, notably through companies like **TSMC**. A prolonged conflict or **blockade** of the island would have immediate global economic repercussions, far beyond the Indo-Pacific region alone.

For some Western analysts, this economic reality is an additional argument for firmer commitment from **Western** powers to the **defense** of **Taiwan**, going beyond democratic solidarity to touch on concrete and immediate economic interests.

### A lever Beijing understands too

This global dependence on Taiwanese semiconductors nonetheless cuts both ways: it could discourage some international actors from confronting **China** too directly for fear of broad economic retaliation, or it could instead reinforce **Western** determination to protect this critical infrastructure at all costs.

This economic ambiguity adds yet another layer of complexity to an already saturated file of strategic uncertainties, where military, diplomatic and economic calculations intertwine without any single capital able to claim a complete view of all possible scenarios.

*I refuse to reduce Taiwan to its microchips. Twelve million people live on this island with the right to choose their own political destiny, regardless of how strategically valuable their semiconductor plants are to the rest of the world.*

## What China's silence on specifics reveals

### A general accusation rather than a factual response

The Taiwan Affairs Office's refusal to directly respond to Lin Fei-fan's specific claims, preferring instead a general accusation against President **Lai Ching-te**, illustrates a revealing asymmetry of method. On one side, verifiable facts, documented exercises, precise participant numbers. On the other, accusatory rhetoric with no factual counter-argument.

This asymmetry is, **notably**, not trivial within the context of a broader information **war** in which **Beijing** seeks to shape the international narrative around **Taiwan** as a rebellious province rather than a functioning **democracy** of 23 million people with its own institutions.

### The battle of narrative, as important as the military battle

In a world where international opinion can influence the level of support given to **Taiwan** in a crisis, this battle over narrative — who provokes, who defends — becomes a **strategic** front in its own right, distinct from but linked to the military and civilian preparations on the ground.

It is precisely for this reason that Lin Fei-fan's statement deserves to be taken seriously beyond its immediate reach: it is a deliberate attempt to set the terms of the debate before **Beijing** manages to impose its own inverted victim narrative.

*The war of narratives is not a side issue, it is central. If international opinion comes to believe Taiwan is provoking China, Western support will erode at the precise moment the island needs it most. That's why I refuse the false equivalence between the two narratives.*

## Lessons for other island and frontline democracies

### A model watched beyond the Pacific

Taiwan's "whole of society" **resilience** doctrine is starting to draw interest from other democracies facing threatening authoritarian neighbors, notably the Baltic states in relation to Russia. The principles of **civilian** mobilization, strategic stockpiles and psychological preparation of the population find direct echoes in current European **security** debates.

This international circulation of **resilience** doctrines illustrates a broader realization: 21st-century national **defense** is no longer confined to conventional military capability, but engages the entire social and economic fabric of a threatened nation.

### A signal sent well beyond the Taiwan Strait

By publicly documenting its exercises and openly owning its defensive posture without rhetorical detour, **Taiwan** also sends a signal to other democracies closely watching how a technologically advanced but numerically outmatched island can structure credible **deterrence** against an overpowering authoritarian neighbor.

This signal reaches well beyond the bilateral China-Taiwan framework: it stands as a case study for any democratic nation living under the direct **threat** of an authoritarian neighbor determined to erase its political autonomy.

*What Taiwan is building today could, in ten years, become the reference manual for any small democracy caught between its desire for autonomy and the raw power of an authoritarian neighbor. That's a lesson that extends far beyond the Asia-Pacific.*

## What 2027 might actually mean

### A deadline turned strategic obsession

The year **2027**, marking the centennial of the founding of the People's Liberation Army, has become an obsessive benchmark in Western and Taiwanese analyses of the Chinese **threat**, based on repeated statements by Chinese officials calling for full **military** modernization by that date.

It should nonetheless be noted with caution that no definitive evidence confirms an invasion is being planned for that specific year, and that this deadline remains largely interpretive, built from official Chinese rhetoric about modernization rather than an explicitly dated invasion plan.

### The caution needed around fixed dates

This methodological nuance takes nothing away from the urgency of Taiwan's preparations, but it is a reminder that rigorous journalism must distinguish between a projected military capability and a confirmed invasion intent tied to a precise date, two things Western media coverage sometimes dangerously conflates.

What can be said with certainty, however, is that Taiwan's window for preparation is shrinking as Chinese military modernization advances, regardless of the exact date Beijing might choose to act.

*I refuse to give in to the fatalism of precise dates circulating in some Western media. 2027 is not a prophecy, it's a working hypothesis. But Taiwan's urgency is very real, regardless of the exact timeline Beijing ultimately chooses.*

## The role of Japan and regional neighbors

### Tokyo watches with growing concern

Japan, Taiwan's immediate neighbor and itself engaged in a persistent territorial dispute with China, closely follows every development in Taiwan's defensive posture. Former Japanese officials have repeatedly warned that a crisis in Taiwan would automatically become a crisis for Japanese security, given the geographic proximity of the Sakishima Islands.

This regional interdependence explains why Taiwan's resilience exercises are no longer seen as a strictly bilateral matter between Taipei and Beijing, but as a test of the stability of the entire Indo-Pacific security architecture built over decades around American alliances.

### An informal coalition taking shape

Without any formal treaty publicly confirming it, signs of coordination between Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and Australia are multiplying in response to China's growing assertiveness in the region. This informal coalition, still fragile, could prove decisive should Beijing one day decide to test the collective resolve of its democratic neighbors.

It is within this broader context that Lin Fei-fan's statement takes on its full strategic meaning: it speaks not only to Beijing, but to every regional capital watching how Taiwan chooses to tell its own story in the face of the threat.

*I believe the future of Indo-Pacific security is being decided as much in Tokyo and Manila as in Taipei. An informal but real democratic coalition could prove more deterrent than any ambiguous American statement about a hypothetical intervention.*

## Conclusion: an island that refuses to take the blame

### A narrative reversal that could set a precedent

Lin Fei-fan's July 7, 2026, statement may well be remembered as a turning point in how Taiwan chooses to present itself to the world: no longer as a province awaiting an outside verdict, but as a democracy that documents, justifies and openly owns each of its defensive choices, while placing responsibility for escalation squarely on its true author.

Whether this rhetorical strategy will be enough to durably shift international opinion remains uncertain. But it has the merit of factual clarity, backed by documented exercises, verifiable figures and directly attributed quotes, rather than vague mutual accusations.

### What history may remember

If history remembers one lesson from this episode, it may be this: a nation preparing to survive is not the one provoking war, but the one refusing to disappear without having tried everything to avoid it. Taiwan, in 2026, appears to have chosen that path, eyes wide open to the risks it carries.

*I'll close with a simple conviction: the free world should listen to Lin Fei-fan with the same attention it eventually gave Zelensky. Democracies threatened by authoritarian neighbors deserve to be believed when they say who is provoking and who is defending.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- Reuters — Taiwan's preparations are not provocation, senior official says, July 7, 2026

- Taiwan Ministry of National Defense — official site

- Focus Taiwan — politics section

### Secondary sources

- Reuters — Inside Taiwan's nightmare scenario, July 3, 2026

- Axios — geopolitics and security coverage

- Military Times — defense and security analysis

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/taiwan-defend-ses-preparatifs-face-a-la-chine-refuse-le-mot-provocation