On an island in the Kinmen archipelago, in the Taiwan Strait, Taiwanese soldiers are marching through a dark tunnel. “The enemy is landing,” one of their number says. As they emerge onto a gloomy beach, they begin to notice hordes of fighters from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) camouflaged in the shadows. Lights flash in the darkness; the sound of machine-gun fire pierces the air.
PREMIUM “Zero Day Attack”, a ten-episode drama, makes its debut on Taiwanese TV on August 2nd. It is the first mainstream film or TV show made in the country to imagine how China might try to annex the island, making its broadcast a cultural milestone. (The show will be released in Japan later in the month, but international distribution has yet to be announced.)
Taiwan’s screenwriters have avoided depicting a cross-strait war, considering the subject too contentious. But Cheng Hsin-mei, the showrunner of “Zero Day Attack”, is concerned, having observed the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown in Hong Kong in recent years. “We want to bring awareness while we have the freedom to create,” she says. “We could lose our freedom in the future.”
Ever since the Kuomintang (KMT) fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese civil war, China’s leaders have threatened to retake the island. At first, this did not seem realistic, as China did not have much firepower. Then, after China began to open up and reform its economy in 1978, Taiwanese began investing in China: the resulting economic intertwinement encouraged many Taiwanese to think a war with China was improbable. Most Taiwanese are still blasé about the Chinese threat. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—not to mention China’s recent military exercises in the Taiwan Strait—have convinced some that conflict could happen.
Puma Shen, a member of Taiwan’s parliament who acted as a consultant on “Zero Day Attack”, says the show reflects such shifting attitudes. In 2021, when he co-founded the Kuma Academy, a non-governmental organisation which teaches civil defence, many Taiwanese were critical of such efforts and denied that Taiwan needed a “pre-war mentality”. Now, however, increasing numbers are signing up for workshops on topics such as information warfare and evacuation planning.
Taiwan’s government, too, wants to up the ante. Last year a new policy on conscription came into effect, extending the term from four months to 12. This year Lai Ching-te, the president, announced plans to increase defence spending to over 3% of GDP, up from 2.5%.
So how does “Zero Day Attack” envisage an attack unfolding? It begins with a Chinese spy plane disappearing in waters near Taiwan. Under the guise of a search-and-rescue mission, China deploys aeroplanes and ships and starts to enact a blockade. Taiwan’s outgoing president tells the president-elect that an American aircraft-carrier is nearby and the Americans will help if he gives the word, but she is reluctant to take him up on the offer, fearing that any intervention would escalate the conflict. Such worries about appearing the provocateur echo real officials’ concerns when it comes to handling China’s military manoeuvres.
“Zero Day Attack” underscores that a Chinese attack on Taiwan will involve a range of weapons, not all of them ballistic. There are blackouts. Phone signal becomes patchy; the island sees its biggest internet outage ever, one which lasts for more than a day. News stations temporarily go off air. The aim is to create chaos and undermine any sense of social cohesion. Jets are often seen flying overhead and tanks are on the streets. Many Taiwanese start to flee from the island.
Particularly effective is China’s information warfare. Doctored videos circulate on social media, spreading fake news about a missile strike. Pro-China influencers start agitating online and presenting Taiwan’s democracy as a sham. China’s government infiltrates criminal gangs, using them to create havoc on the streets.
China proposes a peace agreement, which stipulates that Taiwan accept the policy of “one country, two systems”—the model of governance China imposes on Hong Kong, which supposedly allows for autonomy but in practice leaves Hong Kong at the mercy of the Communist Party. Some politicians, desperate for resolution, support the agreement.
Each episode of “Zero Day Attack” is directed by a leading Taiwanese film-maker and looks at the events from a particular perspective. One episode follows the president-elect; another focuses on the tv stations; still others explore how rich Taiwanese or working-class people would be affected. The result is a scorching depiction of how war would shake society.
Warning shots
As you might expect for a drama about a loaded geopolitical subject, “Zero Day Attack” has not had zero problems in production. Some consider the show to be propaganda for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which firmly rejects China’s claim to the island. Politicians in the KMT, which favours more cordial ties with China, have pointed out that Taiwan’s culture ministry had invested in the series (though the ministry does this for many local productions). Another of the show’s main investors is Robert Tsao, a billionaire founder of a semiconductor company, who has also given money to civilian-defence initiatives including the Kuma Academy. Both Mr Tsao and Mr Shen have been labelled “separatists” by China.
Ms Cheng says some Taiwanese talent agents refused to put forward their actors for the show for fear that they would get blacklisted in China—which would be bad for business, given that China has the world’s biggest tv and film audience. So Ms Cheng sought out people who were not worried about being banned. One of the show’s China-backed rabble-rousers, Big John, is played by Chapman To, an actor from Hong Kong turned Taiwanese immigrant. He was a vocal supporter of Hong Kong’s democracy movement in 2014, which caused Chinese audiences to boycott his films and production companies to refuse to work with him.
What is most intriguing is that the series is not nearly as apocalyptic as the original 17-minute trailer, released last year, promised. It imagined “Total Chaos. Shortages of supplies, complete interruption of water, electricity and telecommunication.” These things do not transpire in the finished show. Ms Cheng says the trailer was designed to be terrifying as a hook to get audiences interested. Mr Shen, the consultant, denies that alarming scenes were cut because of political pressure. Lo Ging-zim, one of the directors, has been adamant that “Not a single word of the script had been modified by the government.”
Yet Yen Chen-shen, a political scientist at National Chengchi University, who was not involved in the project, reckons the Taiwanese government may well have pressed the film-makers to tone down some of the story’s scariest parts. Officials he knows want the public to be prepared for an invasion, but they do not want to petrify them.
“Zero Day Attack” is not without its artistic flaws. America is portrayed as a staunch ally—a description few would apply to the current administration. China-backed characters, such as Big John, are generally portrayed as cartoonish spies and gangsters. Many people in China, Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora do not want to see Taiwanese people mistreated but nonetheless believe that, because of their shared culture, Taiwan ought to be part of China. How that might be achieved, given the overwhelming opposition of Taiwanese people to being ruled by the Communist Party, is a tricky question. Still, the series could have portrayed Taiwanese who favour unification more sympathetically.
“Zero Day Attack” arrives on screen months after the pLA rehearsed an amphibious invasion and naval blockades, as well as disrupting supply lines and bombing energy facilities. No one knows whether China will one day make good on its threats. But after watching this show, no one can claim not to have been warned.
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