ZERO DAY ATTACK- A WARNING SHOT FOR TAIWAN

A striking new chapter in Taiwanese popular media was inaugurated with the premiere of “Zero Day Attack” (零日攻击), a ten-episode drama which imagines the tense lead-up to a hypothetical Chinese invasion- a subject long considered too sensitive for mainstream film and TV in Taiwan. In the show’s dramatic opening episode, a polling station in Taipei City is bombed during a close-run presidential election, while Chinese ships and aircraft blockade Taiwan under the guise of a search-and-rescue operation and Taiwanese soldiers on Dadan Island in the frontline Kinmen archipelago begin to mysteriously disappear. 

The drama, which debuted on August 2nd in Taiwan and released in Japan on August 15th, confronts anxieties around heightened Chinese military activity, including war games and daily shows of force near Taiwan, prompting viewers to reflect on what preparedness and resilience really mean in the face of existential threats. Zero Day Attack is the first mainstream film or TV show made in Taiwan exploring in detail a hypothetical Chinese attempt to annex the island. The show has shattered a long-held taboo in the region’s film and television industry marking a cultural turning point that has spurred intense debate about Taiwan’s security and future. 

A Unique Show

The significance of the show is reflected in the reactions to its release. ‘It feels so real and frightening,’ said one viewer after watching the show’s 17-minute official trailer, voicing the anxieties of a Taiwanese viewership that had long treated the topic of potential Chinese invasion as taboo. The buzz of discourse reflects a shift in the Taiwanese zeitgeist, with increasing numbers of Taiwanese signing up for workshops on topics such as information warfare and evacuation planning, and opinion polling suggesting that a majority of Taiwanese support the government’s 2024 decision to extend the period of compulsory military service to one year. According to showrunner Cheng Hsin-mei, part of the inspiration for Zero Day Attack came from ‘witnessing the severity of the war in Ukraine,’ which prompted her to confront Taiwan’s own invasion fears. China for its part has slammed the show, with a Defence Ministry spokesperson accusing it of ‘plunging Taiwan into the flames of war.’ More than half of the show’s crew asked to remain anonymous for fear of being blacklisted in mainland Chinese film and TV, while a director pulled out of the production at the last minute. There has also been some backlash within Taiwan, with opposition Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers accusing the DPP of using public funds to finance propaganda for itself (in response, the showrunners pointed out that Taiwan’s culture ministry invests in many local productions).  

Politics of Unease

The bombing with which Zero Day Attack opens may be dramatized, but the fact that the target is a polling station as opposed to say, a military base, highlights the importance of the contentious nature of Taiwanese politics- both to the show and any potential Chinese invasion. This represents an acknowledgement of how certain politicians can take advantage of Taiwan’s democratic institutions to fuel scepticism of U.S. support and block national defence efforts, thus undermining Taiwan’s ability to resist before an invasion even begins.  Scenes of lawmakers brawling in the Legislative Yuan could just as well have been taken from actual evening news broadcasts in Taiwan. Behind closed doors, the lawmakers initiating brawls in the legislature in the show affirm their support for ‘One Country, Two Systems,’ parroting Chinese state media claims that ‘Taiwan’s democracy and freedom are a lie,’ and the island is ‘at the mercy of Uncle Sam.’ 

Likewise, the show portrays the executive and legislative branches of government as at loggerheads, reflecting current political reality where the DPP controls the presidency but lacks a majority in the legislature. Whether this ‘fifth column’ of clandestine enemy sympathizers who sabotage Taiwan from within is receiving direct backing from the mainland is not made explicit, but the point is- Taiwanese politics and society are acutely vulnerable to infiltration and subversion.

The use of familiar images from Taiwanese political life eventually leads into a sense of profound unease, as the show demonstrates how political discord could be a symptom of something far more sinister. The scenarios presented in the show leave an impression because they seem plausible. In the show, a soldier is kidnapped to gain leverage over his mother, who is on the president-elect’s security detail. In 2021, a retired presidential security officer and serving military police lieutenant colonel at the unit tasked with protecting the president had their conviction upheld for leaking sensitive information to a Chinese intelligence agency.

Also noteworthy is the episode’s treatment of women in Taiwanese politics. President-elect Wang Ming-fan is shown as a newcomer to national politics, struggling against both political allies and opponents who see her as a puppet of older, male establishment politicians in her party. ‘Mind your manners when you speak,’ her father tells her in one particularly jarring scene. The show acknowledges how despite being one of the highest scorers on gender equality indices in Asia, Taiwan still retains regressive attitudes towards women (for example, divorce and inheritance laws remain favourable towards men, while family structures remain hierarchical). This, coupled with Ming-fan’s largely sympathetic characterisation as a progressive politician who was elected on a platform of ‘youth reform’ indicates the show’s awareness of its primarily younger and likely politically progressive viewer demographic. Parallels to real-life counterparts Taipei City mayor Chiang Wan-an, (who is likewise young and U.S.-educated), as well as former president Tsai Ing-wen (Taiwan’s first female president), will not go unnoticed.

A Keen Awareness of Strategic Vulnerability

In the show, while a fraught transition of power is underway in Taiwan, China uses the disappearance of a Y-8 reconnaissance aircraft as a pretext for launching a search-and-rescue mission which quickly turns into an all-out blockade of Taiwan. Zero Day Attack treats the Chinese blockade as a fait accompli for much of its first episode, with the choice facing the Taiwanese increasingly seeming like a binary between war and capitulation. This constitutes an acknowledgement of the ‘new normal’ of PLA military exercises and transgressions of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) that has emerged over the last decade or so. Taiwan reported 69 intrusions into its ADIZ when it began reporting the data in September 2020, a number that has since risen to an average of 328.6 per month since Lai Ching-te’s inauguration in May 2024. This also highlights the steadily increasing sophistication and aggression of Chinese military drills near Taiwan, simulating an outright encirclement of the island from 2022 onwards. 

The freedom of action available to Chinese forces in blockading Taiwan and undermining its government is contrasted with a Taiwanese leadership that increasingly seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place. In the episode, president-elect Wang Ming-fan cautions outgoing president Sun Jung-chen against ordering any preemptive defensive measures which may provoke a Chinese reaction. The unspoken assumption here is that given the number of countries aligned with Beijing’s ‘One China’ principle, any instigation of conflict on Taiwan’s part could be used by international actors as an excuse to view Beijing’s action towards Taiwan as an internal matter, ignoring Taiwan’s invocation of the right of individual or collective self-defence.

Message of Resolve

Episode 1 of Zero Day Attack effectively draws parallels between its own scenarios and real-world cases to present a frightening picture of Taiwanese vulnerability, where a Taiwan corroded from within by infiltration and subversion faces a potentially existential threat externally. This is not to say that the show offers no glimmers of hope, for Taiwan, however. 

American support in the event of war is assumed to be guaranteed- an artistic choice seemingly meant to reassure in the current atmosphere of increased American strategic uncertainty. Given this, the casting of Taiwanese American actress Janet Hsieh as president-elect Wang Ming-fan assumes some significance. At the same time, the show seems to signal that despite Taiwan’s vulnerability, the island may be able to safeguard its autonomy and democracy if its people are committed to it. President-elect Wang’s renunciation of American dual citizenship upon winning her election, together with her exhortation to ‘preserve and safeguard (Taiwan’s) hard-won freedom and democracy’ indicate that while episode 1 of Zero Day Attack presents an image of Taiwanese vulnerability, its intended message is ultimately one of Taiwanese resolve. How subsequent episodes seek to build upon these themes remains to be seen. 

Image Source: Straits Times

This is the first piece of a six-part series analyzing the Taiwanese TV series ‘Zero Day Attack’ for the Organization for Research on China and Asia’s (ORCA) ‘Reviewing Chinese Culture’ segment