THE KMT HAS hit out at an Internet slowdown drill, which was conducted during the annual Wan-an drill yesterday. The Wan-an drill is an annual air raid drill in which individuals are called on to shelter in place. This year was the first time that mobile Internet was slowed down, so as to prepare for potential contingencies involving disruptions to Taiwan’s communication networks.
Taiwan is increasingly wary of what might take place if its submarine cables, connecting Taiwan to the rest of the world in terms of Internet, were cut in wartime by Chinese vessels. When this occurred to Taiwan’s outlying island of Matsu in 2023, sending a text message would take 20 minutes. Likewise, China has stepped up grey-zone activity that could potentially allow for the cutting of submarine cables.
Nevertheless, it may not be a surprise that at a time when the KMT has generally taken aim at any defensive measures that would be useful for Taiwan in wartime, whether that be drones or other capabilities, they have also hit out at the Internet slowdown drill. In particular, the KMT sought to tar the Internet drill as some kind of authoritarian measure intended to test capacities to enforce an Internet blackout, claiming that the drill was “False practice, true martial law.”
The DPP framed the slowdown drill as something conducted, too, by other democratic countries in the region such as South Korea and Japan. By contrast, the KMT has pointed to that Internet shutdowns are most commonly carried out by authoritarian countries in order to prevent information from leaking out about atrocities committed during that period.
Indeed, this is not incorrect. The KMT is also not incorrect when it calls on the Lai administration to provide greater clarity about what capacities it specifically hopes to test disruptions to. But it would, of course, be China that would seek to disrupt Taiwan’s Internet in the event of wartime, and such a drill would allow for practicing how to restore capacities–or what needs to be done in order to strengthen resilience. Likewise, the drill would make members of the public more aware of the possibility of disruptions to communication networks in wartime, in that drills are meant to allow the public to imagine what wartime scenarios could look like and to prepare accordingly.
Ironically, the mobile Internet slowdown drill was probably watered down in order to avoid disruption or panicking the public. After all, Wi-Fi Internet was still usable during this time, potentially limiting its ability to test how to restore connectivity in the event of disruptions.
One notes that Taiwan’s civic tech community has long pushed the government on the issue of testing for Internet outages. However, the Taiwanese government was historically reluctant on the matter due to fears that this would ramp up fears about war, affecting Taiwan’s stock market, and potentially leading to electoral blowback against the DPP. In this way, it is surprising that the slowdown drill happened to begin with. But it can be expected that the KMT will attack it nonetheless–further driving home that the party will aim to sabotage any effort by Taiwan to build up capacities that could be useful in wartime.