Can you guess this place?
> where politics, especially at the national level, is extremely polarized, and the president and MPs from the largest party belong to different political camps;
> security is the number one political issue, and every household has recently received a government safety manual explaining what to do and how to prepare for potential threats;
> although defense spending seems crucial at this moment, the various political factions cannot agree on the budget/loans for this purpose, which is holding back potential investments;
> social resilience is becoming an increasingly important topic in public debate, especially regarding the development of institutions and cross-sectoral cooperation for response, collaboration, and the ability to cope in the face of external crises or conflicts.
Sound familiar? Yes, it’s Taiwan. It turns out that the challenges we face in Poland are shared by other societies as well. For years, Taiwan has struggled with the problem of ensuring security and social stability for its citizens, a task made difficult by a highly polarized political landscape that often harks back to historical divisions.
Taiwan, or more precisely the Republic of China, is also a state that is not officially recognized by most of the international community, despite its de facto political and social independence from the People’s Republic of China on the mainland. The latter, in recent times, has been increasingly violating the waters and airspace around the island, attempting to exert pressure and reduce Taiwan to the status of a special administrative region, such as Hong Kong.
What has, however, definitely set Taiwan apart on the world map in recent times is not its specific status, nor even its global dominance in the production of advanced semiconductors (Taiwan produces approximately 60% of the world’s semiconductors and over 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors). It is its approach to social resilience and civil society that has resulted in a special program of actions and training aimed at preparing and integrating the entire society in the face of potential disasters and challenges.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Taiwan began intensifying its preparations for social resilience to strengthen awareness of civil defense and readiness in the event of any disaster (whether military or natural). It was then that the government issued its first civil defense handbook, which was distributed to all citizens. Then, in 2024 Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party, after winning the presidential election, announced the national “
Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience” program, establishing the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee, which includes representatives from government agencies, industry, and civil society organizations, as well as experts serving as members and advisors.
Since the beginning of his presidency, Lai’s government has organized, among other things, simulation exercises such as air raid defense and responses to land-based disasters. Approximately 100,000 citizens were trained in a short period of time.
Furthermore, joint civil and national defense exercises are planned for 2026 to strengthen the integration and cooperation between these entities. The scale of potential emergency preparedness is also visible on the streets of Taiwan—many public places have clearly marked air raid shelters.
The Committee has also open
ed up opportunities for dialogue and information exchange on social resilience with civil society organizations. The first results of this close cooperation are already visible—for example, the
Forward Alliance, an organization focused on civil defense training, has designed a special app where citizens can upload photos and videos in real time and share critical information from the site of a potential conflict. This information, in turn, reaches not only other citizens but also government agencies, enabling them to respond more quickly and precisely. Coordinating efforts across different sectors is, in fact, one of the main goals of President Lai’s administration. Civil society organizations, private businesses, and local authorities are beginning to collaborate on joint exercises at the local level, organizing food and water distribution points, and identifying temporary shelters.
Although the path to building a fully resilient society is still long, and the scale of a potential conflict impossible to predict, a strong society forms the foundation of security thinking, and it appears that Taiwan is taking this to heart. Military strength, while important, cannot replace the preparedness and networks of cooperation that only an integrated society can develop. This was demonstrated, among other examples, by the case of Ukraine, where civil society organizations proved to be a key element in ensuring the country’s survival and social cohesion during its greatest crisis. The greatest obstacle to building social resilience, however, is the highly polarized domestic political landscape. The main political camps: the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, from which President Lai hails), the Kuomintang (KMT, which holds the most seats in the so-called Lifa Yuan, the equivalent of our parliament), and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP, the smallest party positioning itself as an alternative to the DPP and KMT) do not appear to be seeking an agreement. Currently national agenda is focused on the defense budget, on which depends, among other things, the financing of the purchase of advanced American missiles and drones, which could prove crucial in the event of a potential conflict with mainland China. Each political faction has presented its own proposal with vastly different priorities, and neither of them is willing to back down. President Lai has begun seeking alternative ways to authorize agreements—including those for arms deliveries from the United States—that would bypass the legislature.
The question is: can what is currently happening in Taiwan serve as a lesson or inspiration for Poland? As we can see, there is no shortage of similarities between us, including in negative regard, particularly in terms of a highly polarized central political landscape. However, a shift in the approach to societal resilience and elevating this topic as the foundation for thinking about security is something that can also serve as inspiration for the European country. The Taiwanese themselves admit that when designing their actions, they also draw on the experiences of other countries, including Ukraine, which has had to and continues to cope with many dimensions of full-scale Russian aggression. Furthermore, the initial reluctance to cooperate with civil society organizations has been replaced not only by dialogue but also by a concrete plan that has made it possible to reach many segments of society and strengthen cross-sectoral cooperation. In Poland as well, when designing the government’s security strategy, we should draw on the rich experience of this Asian oasis of democracy in the region and perhaps take inspiration from solutions that have placed societal resilience on par with military preparedness. It is therefore worth investing in intercultural dialogue, especially when our own security is at stake.
* Sonia Horonziak, Director of the Democracy and Civil Society Program at the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), participated in March 2026 in
The Taiwan-US-Europe Policy Program (TUPP) organized by The German Marshall Fund of the United States. The goal of this program is to deepen future socio-political leaders’ knowledge of Taiwan and to strengthen transnational exchange and advocacy for closer cooperation between Europe, the United States, and democratic Taiwan.
