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

And part of that military presence, and not only the naval presence, but the air incursions into the surrounding air defense identification zone has also become a significant problem.

We see that as part of what we call the gray zone threats that is between peace and war You know, there is a gray zone where they are using many different types of hybrid tools to threaten and coerce our society into submission and you know the military

measures are part of that, but there are also many other steps they are taking, such as cognitive warfare through disinformation, political intervention in our society.

They are also

using economic trade tools as another leverage for coercing members of our business community and other foreign countries, threatening them from having ties or relations with Taiwan by using that economic leverage.

And so they are doing a lot.

And in response, you know, we've talked a lot about Taiwan's own military investments and our preparedness.

But I also want to raise another very important initiative of our president, and that is a whole of society defense and resilience project.

That is, we see our

our country's security is not only in military terms, but in societal resilience terms.

That is, we need communications resilience because our undersea cables have been damaged and cut by Chinese vessels recently.

And to ensure that we can continue to communicate with the rest of the world, our data, our comms, so communications resilience, cybersecurity, you know, we are...

Our society is one of the most attacked societies in the world in terms of cyberspace, defending our critical infrastructure, our power, our energy, our transportation lines, the security of our financial system.

you know, thinking about stockpiling as an island.

You know, we need to think about stockpiling critical, you know, food security items and medical supplies.

And of course, energy resilience is a continuing challenge for us that we are working on.

So we have many lines of efforts going on at the same time to further magnify our strength, our resilience in coping with

all of these daily challenges, including the presence of Chinese naval assets around Taiwan.

But let me also, again, raise that it's not only around Taiwan.

They are all over the South China Sea.