Taiwan’s Contingency Plan for Internet Disruption in the Event of a Chinese Attack

On October 14, 2024, a real-life exercise by the Chinese army took place. If this sounds like a rather banal announcement, the conditions of this exercise were carried out by encircling Taiwan. This followed statements by the country's president described as separatist by the majority and ruling party. In this sense, Taiwan therefore fears even more a future Chinese invasion. To prepare for this eventuality, and to avoid finding itself isolated from the rest of the world, the island will soon benefit from satellite internet.

A British-European partnership

As announced The Guardian on October 15, 2024, Taiwan should therefore benefit from a satellite internet connection by the end of October to counter a possible attempt to paralyze the island's communications networks by China.

Thus, during the year 2023, Taiwan, through its majority telecom company Chunghwasigned a partnership with the British-European company Eutelsat OneWeb. The objective is to have the possibility of being able to do without submarine cables allowing access to the internet on the Asian island.

The latter are particularly threatened with being destroyed or heavily damaged by Chinese vessels, particularly submarines.

The alternative Starlink for Taiwan?

When we think of satellite internet, there is one player that immediately comes to mind: Starlink and in particular its billionaire founder Elon Musk. When certain countries are affected by natural disasters or, as in Ukraine, suffer large-scale attacks, Elon Musk often announces in the hours/days following the deployment of Starlink in the area.

This therefore allows the populations on site and especially the emergency services to be able to communicate, and to have an internet connection, without hindrance and without risk of interruption. However, when Taiwan expressed its future need for access to such technology, Elon Musk and Starlink did not respond favorably.

The reason? The links between the American billionaire and China. If, as recalled The Guardianits largest factory is in China, he also made comments considered controversial by the Taiwanese. Citing the fact that for the conflict to end, Taiwan would simply have to agree to submit to the Middle Kingdom, as relayed by The Guardian.

Thus, Elon Musk having chosen his side, the Asian island had to turn to other options.

Satellite Internet, but not only

To ensure its sovereignty and protect itself from an attempt to paralyze its communications systems, Taiwan has also expressed the urgent need to equip itself with its own systems.

“The UK's low-orbit satellites serve Taiwan's current needs, but they can still be disrupted or interrupted. It is important to look for other systems, such as submarine cables, satellites of other countries and.” declared Shen Ming-Shih director of the national security division at the Taiwan Defense and National Security Research Institute, in comments reported by The Guardian.

In 2026, Taiwan is expected to send its first two communications satellites into orbit. However, the question for the Taiwanese authorities is not whether or not they have the capacity to produce them, since they do. No, “the question is whether they can do it at scale and send some into space quickly enough.” explained Jason Wang, a company expert IngeniSpacespecializing in geospatial data analysis.

But, although Taiwan is able to produce its satellites and benefit from the help of other countries and companies, this could not stop the desires of China which could therefore set about destroying present and future satellites by plus submarine cables.

Source : The Guardian