Hsiao Bi-khim (Hsiao, Vice President of Taiwan)

peace, stability, and freedom need to also put our heads together to develop smart, asymmetric, and effective responses.

Well, I think that's part of what we see as the broader whole of society or civil society resilience.

And many polls, domestic public opinion polls over the years have demonstrated that the people of Taiwan are resilient.

are quite adamant about protecting our freedom, protecting our land, and protecting our way of life and our democracy.

But that needs to go beyond just a will or an ideology.

It has to be backed up by capabilities and good training.

And so, as a government, it is also our responsibility to support our society in having

adequate tools to defend ourselves.

Yes.

Yes.

You had an experience of a minor earthquake yesterday.

In Taiwan, we're quite used to earthquakes and, unfortunately, other natural disasters that sometimes cost lives and really have significant impact and damage on our society.

Our society is

you know, building resilience to deal with such impacts and damages to our societies.

So, you know, first aid training, other

emergency response training, again, the stockpiling and resilience, sheltering, all of these are important aspects of our preparedness.

But what we are not so used to is, historically, every disaster we've had is the military supports the civil society.

What we haven't really experienced is going the other way around and our civil society supporting our defense, our military.

And the president's initiative on the whole of society, defense and resilience, is primarily aimed at how citizens can, number one, protect themselves.

And by protecting themselves and defending themselves,