‘Tiktok wouldn’t open at all’: Taiwan simulates an internet blackout, with an eye on China threat

Published 14 August 2026 · world

In Taipei, the streets swiftly empty as air raid sirens ring out and alerts ping on mobile phones. Police officers usher any stragglers into shelters

In Taipei, the streets swiftly empty as air raid sirens ring out and alerts ping on mobile phones. Police officers usher any stragglers into shelters, leaving the capital suddenly deserted. In cities across Taiwan, these kinds of drills are a fact of life every year, amid the growing threat posed by China across the strait, but this time there is something different. Internet speeds were drastically cut on Thursday, simulating a coordinated attack for the first time. Data-heavy services such as video calls, streaming and mobile payments became difficult or impossible to use, while videos on social media barely loaded. However, Wang Chen-wen knows how to reach others. When the sirens sound and her mobile internet begins to grind to a halt, Wang goes to the roof of her 25-storey apartment building, searching for a better radio signal. She connects her phone via Bluetooth to a small, flat device hanging from her bag. Within seconds, she is sending messages without relying on the internet. Minutes later, some of them succeeded in reaching a friend in a neighbouring district. View image in fullscreen People take shelter inside metro stations, during an air raid drill in Taipei. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Photograph: Cheng Yu-Chen/AFP/Getty Images “Testing from Beitou district, Taipei.” “Xinyi district, Taipei.” Messages begin coming in as users share their locations in a group chat being tested on an open-source platform that allows people to use text messages via long-range, low-power radio signals.

“You can’t wait until something actually happens to realise you should have prepared,” says Wang, who leads a local group that provides civil defence training and started learning how to use the platform about six months ago. Authorities said the drill was designed to encourage people to prepare alternative means of communication in an emergency – part of Taiwan’s efforts to strengthen its civil resilience in the face of growing military threats from Beijing, which claims the self-ruling democracy as its own territory and has not ruled out using force to annex it. View image in fullscreen An open-source platform was tested that allows people to send and receive text messages via long-range, low-power radio signals. Photograph: Yu-chen Li/The Guardian The internet disruption exercise took place on two separate days this week across 14 cities and counties in northern and central Taiwan, home to roughly 70% of the island’s 23 million people. “If the idea is to recreate what it might be like during a war, it’s definitely inconvenient, but I can understand why they’re doing it,” says Jimmy Chu, a 22-year-old worker who says messages from his boss failed to come through during the drill. Tzeng Yi-suo, an associate researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for Defense and Security Research, says the inconvenience itself was intentional.