Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (centre) speaks with military personnel near aircraft parked on a highway in Jiadong, Taiwan, in September. Photo / AP
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (centre) speaks with military personnel near aircraft parked on a highway in Jiadong, Taiwan, in September. Photo / AP
On a busy street in Taiwan's capital city, bystanders are rushing to help the injured.
Some bandage arms or try to stem the blood running from open gashes; others evacuate wounded people on stretchers or perform CPR on motionless bodies.
The blood and broken bones in Taipei's recent mass casualty simulation were fake, but as the possibility of war with neighbour China grows, the fears behind the event are very real.
"We are at the point where the level of threat we face is so high and the cost so huge, potential consequences unacceptable and unbearable that I think we just need to see how each of us can do more," Enoch Wu, the founder of the NGO behind the event, Forward Alliance, told the Telegraph.
The hope is that such public training courses will lay the foundation for a future civil defence force that could be activated if the worst comes to the worst - whether in a disaster or conflict.
"We hope that this capability will deter war. Civil defence is a big part of that equation," Wu said.
Taiwan, a lush Pacific Island of 23.5 million people, is keenly aware that it sits on geographical and geopolitical fault lines that make it vulnerable to the risk of an attack from Beijing - a risk that appears to be growing every month.
Taiwan is home to 23.5 million people. Photo / AP
The Chinese Communist Party has recently increased threats to take the territory by force if Taipei does not agree to Chinese rule. In October, as Beijing's warplanes buzzed Taiwan's air defence zone in unprecedented numbers, Chiu Kuo-cheng, the Taiwanese defence minister, warned China would be capable of launching a "full scale" invasion by 2025.
The escalating crisis has raised pressure on the government and defence ministry to hike and refocus military spending and to reform the armed forces to maximise deterrence capabilities.
But ordinary Taiwanese are also being forced to confront how they would respond to the worst-case scenario of their homeland being devastated by conflict, and amid the constant bellicose rhetoric from Beijing, some such as Wu - a rising local politician - have started to take matters into their own hands.
The goal of Forward Alliance is to equip some 10,000 people with First Aid and survival skills to steer their own local communities through disasters or wartime emergencies to form the building blocks of a nationwide homeland defence force, he explained.
"Our civil defence vision is a community-based, localised organisation that complements our conventional forces and supports our professional responders, from fire to police," he said.
"The idea is that with that kind of civ-mil co-operation we can actually implement a whole-of-society defence concept. You want as many people as possible to have the will and the capability to protect themselves and to help each other."
The result would be just as useful in the case of a deadly earthquake as in a war: "If disaster strikes – natural disasters or industrial – then we want to be able to minimise casualties."
As a result, his initiative has received mentoring support from the de facto US embassy as part of its humanitarian assistance and disaster relief programme. The one-day courses see medics, firefighters and police officers offer professional instruction to hundreds of participants.
Reservists to be trained in 'guerilla warfare'
Despite hopes that it will deter war and limit any casualties, there is no military component to Forward Alliance's work.
However, the question of whether to train civilians in urban insurgency tactics is one that has occupied Taiwan's strategists in recent years, particularly given how unevenly matched a potential war with China would be.
Beijing has a defence budget estimated to be 16 times larger than Taipei's, while China's 1 million ground troops dwarf Taiwan's 210,000 active personnel. Beijing has rapidly expanded its missile arsenal, air and naval power in recent years, adding combat-ready aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines to its fleet.
Admiral Lee Hsi-min, chief of general staff from 2017 to 2019, raised the proposal of special operations forces taking on this mission as part of his "Overall Defence Concept" (ODC) doctrine.
Under the ODC, Taiwan would wield its natural strategic advantages as a mountainous island to repel and resist Chinese control.
But Admiral Lee told the Telegraph a key part of his deterrence doctrine was to transform the current reservist system into a "territorial defence force" to carry out "guerrilla warfare" using light portable weapons like Manpads and IEDs, adding depth to a conventional campaign.
"[China] will still have to think how to deal with this kind of homeland defence. That is deterrence because you complicate their operational plan. If you can always complicate their operational plan they will wait," he said.
The proposal goes much further than the current debate on gradual reforms to the reservist system and four-month compulsory military service, which have been criticised for failing to adequately prepare recruits who would be called up during a war.
Chen Hsieng-you, a mechanical engineer who did his national service two years ago, reflected a widespread view that he would be willing to defend Taiwan but did not feel confident in his training.
"Young people will say they would like to fight but I don't think I can use my combat skills or shooting skills in a war. How can I fight as a soldier?" he said.
Frustration in Washington
The ministry of national defence, which recently proposed longer refresher training for reservists, said it was constantly reviewing the combat effectiveness of its active and reserve forces.
But frustration lingers in Washington that reforms are not being made fast enough.
Two draft US Senate bills this month proposed billions in military financing aid on condition that Taipei raises its defence budget, focuses on asymmetric warfare rather than flashy items like fighter jets that could quickly be overwhelmed, and reforms its reserves into a more robust territorial force.
"There needs to be more of a territorial or homeland defence mission with associated training so that it presents a layered defence, as opposed to the current model which is that these reserve forces would be plugging gaps at the beachhead," said Heino Klinck, former deputy assistant secretary of defence for East Asia.
"There are plenty of worldwide examples that Taiwan can pick and choose from that best matches the Taiwan specific environment."
Klinck has previously argued the US, as guarantor of Taiwan's security and its biggest arms supplier, should show "tough love" to push Taipei to fine tune its military priorities.
The Taiwanese ministry of defence said it welcomed the Senate bills and was building an "asymmetric combat force" to meet the needs of defence operations and the changing enemy threat. The military had "demonstrated its determination to defend itself", it said in a statement.
Its latest biennial military strategy report, released this month, focused on investing in a large number of small, survivable weapons, including sea mines and coastal missile systems, to inflict maximum damage on Chinese forces while they are crossing the Taiwan Strait.
Kolas Yotaka, spokeswoman for Taiwan's presidential office, added that as the security environment changed, "Taiwan has been upgrading our defence in every sense. Updating strategy, raising budgets, and improving co-ordination with partners.
"Taiwanese are survivors. We are alert and prepared," she said. "Although maintaining peace is our goal and our priority, we are not ignoring the risks we face."
