China is ramping up “gray zone” warfare against Taiwan and the Taiwanese military and civilian population are focused on responding to major telecommunications attacks as part of Beijing’s plan to coerce the annexation of the island, according to a think tank war game.
China is more likely to cut undersea cables, use cyberattacks to shut down cell service and knock out internet service on the island than to launch a military invasion or naval blockade, according to Foundation for Defense of Democracies experts who held the recent tabletop exercise in Taiwan.
China’s pressure campaign against the island state, which Beijing regards as its territory, is changing from episodic military exercises, limited cyber intrusions and occasional undersea cable disruptions to more persistent coercive strategic actions, Craig Singleton, director of the FDD China program, said in a briefing for reporters.
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“China does not need a blockade or a quarantine or an invasion to create strategic pressure on Taiwan,” he said. “Communications disruption can impose costs on its own, amplify problems in sectors like energy and transportation, and enable broader coercive or military operations.”
The two-day exercise began with simulated People’s Liberation Army conducting limited degradation strikes against Taiwanese communications networks, from low-level cell phone disruptions, cyberattacks, small-scale electronic attacks on undersea cable landing areas, limited satellite communications interference and disinformation operations.
The second day saw ramped-up coercive action modeling of disabling multiple communications substations, cutting several international undersea cables and the use of replacement microwave communications heavily stressed.
The Taiwan team at the exercise complicated the Chinese campaign with redundant communications links and through coordinating with U.S. and Japanese repair ships for the cables and cyber mitigation efforts, the FDD experts involved in the war game said.
Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who also took part, said his main takeaway from the war game was that bolstering Taiwan’s communications networks and coordinating responses with the United States and Japan are keys to deterring a major Chinese attack in the first place.
Adm. Montgomery said he hopes to conduct similar war games for American congressional defense leaders and federal agency heads.
Both Mr. Singleton and Adm. Montgomery said Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te is laser-focused on hardening both the communications networks and the people of Taiwan to the dangers of stepped-up coercion by Beijing.
Mr. Lai said in a presidential statement about the FDD visit that the group affirmed his government’s “whole-of-society defense resilience” efforts.
Mr. Singleton said the exercise showed that Taiwan has redundant communications in the event of a Chinese attack but needs to strengthen the efforts to make sure all function at the same time.
“I think that is a much harder resilience problem and the one that the current Lai administration appears to be addressing,” he said.
China’s objective with communications attacks is to translate social disruption into political leverage that seeks to coerce Taipei into capitulation as the only path back to normality, Mr. Singleton said.
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