What the Go-Bag Craze Reveals About Taiwan's War Readiness
Civil defense groups and influencers quickly took the chance to raise awareness of go-bag use and war preparedness. An online survey of over 25,000 respondents found that more than 60 percent had either already prepared a go-bag or expressed willingness to do so. Behind this viral moment lies a deeper transformation in Taiwan's approach to societal security – one driven not by government mandate, but by grassroots action.
At the 2025 Shangri-La Dialogue, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned that the Chinese threat to Taiwan 'could be imminent,' citing China's preparation to use military force to alter the regional balance and reach full operational capability to take Taiwan by 2027. While military preparedness for such an event remains important, Taiwan increasingly recognizes the role of civilian resilience. The war in Ukraine demonstrated how noncombatants can support defense efforts through evacuation, logistics, and aid. For many in Taiwan, this redefined 'defense' not just as battlefield readiness, but as a community's ability to function amid disruption.
While President Lai Ching-te's administration has established a Whole-of-Society Resilience Defense Committee, civil society has simultaneously taken an active role in advancing civil defense efforts.
Civil society-led defense in Taiwan is not just a stopgap – it is a safeguard against instability in Taiwan's deeply polarized political climate. As the opposition-controlled legislature blocks key components of the 2025 budget, including civil defense funding, reliance on government-led systems can be risky. A decentralized, citizen-driven defense effort offers continuity where formal institutions may fail. It ensures preparedness beyond partisan deadlock and signals to the international community that Taiwan's resilience stems not only from its state, but from its people.
Since 2020, NGOs like Kuma Academy and Forward Alliance have stepped in to offer practical education, scenario training, and the cultivation of psychological readiness in preparation for conflict. As structured organizations, they systematically provide these services nationwide.
Since 2022, more than 20 self-organized local training groups have emerged across Taiwan in response to rising security concerns. Independent from national institutions, these groups adopt a decentralized, community-based approach tailored to regional needs, offering training in first aid, psychological resilience, urban survival, and more. Their strength lies in cultivating trust and coordination at the neighborhood level – fostering relationships and readiness that large bureaucracies often struggle to build.
Despite their individual flexibility, decentralized groups increasingly see the need for a platform to coordinate, share practices, and engage in joint exercises with each other and with government actors.
In April 2025, the Formosa Republican Association (FRA) gathered local self-training groups for Taiwan's largest-ever civilian-led self-funded civil defense drill. During the exercise, around 100 participants rehearsed wartime emergency tasks such as search and rescue, shelter management, and medical triage, while also engaging with the military and multiple layers of government – including local police, social welfare agencies, and public health authorities.
The exercise demonstrated how decentralized actors can operate in a networked way, leveraging diverse skills and testing intergroup coordination, instead of passively waiting for government instruction. While autonomous in peacetime, exercises such as the FRA's serve to test and refine provisional command chains, strengthening their ability to interface with formal institutions.
Some believe that community-based civil defense is essential for preparing for the worst-case scenario – namely, making Taiwan ungovernable in the event of occupation. Yet few dare to say so aloud.
Civil defense inherently involves multiple layers: some focus on logistical or psychological resilience, while others – such as post-occupation resistance – require more weapons training. Programs like the FRA's, however, have deliberately avoided firearms. Even without overt militarization, such efforts are often portrayed as panic-inducing or provocative. These criticisms obscure a broader reality: China's pursuit of regional hegemony, as Hegseth warned, continues regardless of how Taiwan chooses to prepare.
Returning to AIT's go-bag episode, the U.S. State Department later clarified its support for Taiwan's whole-of-society resilience – covering natural disasters and broader emergencies. The diplomatic softening reflected both strategic ambiguity and an awareness that linking civil preparedness to war remains sensitive in Taiwan's cross-strait context.
War preparedness has long been a sensitive subject – viewed as taboo or unnecessarily alarmist by some – due to decades of exposure to gray zone coercion from Beijing, which has normalized the presence of its threat and encouraged avoidance rather than engagement. In some cases, civil defense efforts are criticized domestically as 'provocative' or framed by pro-China actors as unnecessarily militaristic to discourage the efforts.
This public ambivalence makes top-down wartime mobilization politically difficult, highlighting the importance of civil society's autonomy and flexibility as an alternative system. Civil defense groups navigate sensitivities through different framings: some present their work as natural disaster preparedness to avoid controversy, while others emphasize deterrence and national identity, believing that cultivating a sense of vigilance toward war is paramount. These grassroots preparedness initiatives take diverse forms to meet the varying disaster imaginaries of the Taiwanese public, effectively compensating for the gaps that top-down government efforts cannot easily reach or impose upon due to political costs.
Taiwan's civil society has become a vital second line of defense capable of sustaining preparedness even when government budgets stall or political tensions run high, while allowing for flexible messaging that avoids giving adversaries a pretext to discredit efforts. By remaining decentralized, these initiatives tailor coordination to local needs and build deeper trust at the community level. It reflects a society that understands the limitations of centralized systems and is actively building responsiveness from the ground up.
In recognition of this momentum, Taiwan's government will launch 'National Unity Month' in July – featuring nationwide urban resilience drills, air raid simulations, and civil-military cooperation exercises aimed at strengthening societal preparedness and deepening civilian engagement in national defense. This reciprocal momentum – from both government and grassroots – is a strategic asset the world must recognize and support.
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