Two weeks ago, a Taiwanese TV station released a trailer for “Zero Day,” a dramatic series about a fictional war with China.  It has already been viewed over 1.4 million times on YouTube.

The preview presents a rich and riveting view of the steps leading to war.  The details are so realistic that a YouTube commenter from the Ukraine described one scene as “Exactly what happened at my home … in Kharkiv… when Russia attacked.” 

The ten-episode series says little about how or even whether the US gets involved.  Instead, it imagines events within Taiwan during the seven days leading up to war. Characters in the drama respond to the threats in a variety of ways, including fight, flight, and utter confusion.

In one scene, a fictional social media influencer urges her countrymen to side with China, as shown below:

Several other scenes show criminals being released from Taiwanese prisons at the behest of China, since “China has long been infiltrating the underworld and social organizations.”  They immediately begin committing crimes which contribute to the chaos and magnify social unrest.

This 17-minute trailer (in Mandarin with English subtitles) begins when a PLA (People’s Liberation Army of China) Y-8 military transport “mysteriously disappears” from radar near Taiwan.  China imposes a naval blockade on the island, under the pretext of a search and rescue operation.  Within a few days, all international shipping has been blocked from the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s stock market has cratered, there’s been a run on the banks, ATMs have stopped working, and the US and other countries have begun trying to evacuate their citizens from Taiwan.

Chaos continues to grow.  Four days before the war begins, according to the film, “Hacker attacks and spy sabotages have led to random water, power and internet disruptions.”  The Prime Minister of Taiwan then gives a national address about the need to defend the country, saying “Without freedom Taiwan is not Taiwan.”  But midway through the speech, the TV broadcast is hacked and an AI deepfake of the Prime Minister declares war on China.  The hacked broadcast then switches to an announcer in China, who says “The PLA guarantees all Taiwanese people will be fully protected… When you encounter a PLA soldier, first raise your hands high to show you are not armed… Second, please report to the PLA if you know any hidden pro-independence activists.”

The final day before war begins is described by the film as “Total chaos… [including] shortages of supplies, complete interruption of water, electricity and telecommunications.  The fleeing starts.” The preview ends the day war begins, with an ambiguous picture of armed soldiers hiding in a field in Taiwan. 

If you want to know what happens next in the TV series, you will have to wait for it to be released in Taiwan in 2025.  You may even be able to see it in English; according to CNN “the production team is… in the early stages… of discussions with streaming services including Netflix for a potential international release.”

This is the first TV series in Taiwanese history to dramatize a Chinese invasion. It is scheduled to finish production in November and go on Taiwanese TV sometime in 2025.  The film is highly professional, and even inserts some humor into tragic situations.  For example, while helping her husband pack to flee Taiwan, one young woman says in amazement “We are running for our lives here, and you are packing condoms?”  His answer: “Maybe we’ll need them when we get bored.”

When CNN interviewed producer Hsin-mei Cheng about the series, she said she was “worried that her fellow Taiwan citizens have grown ‘too numb’ to the danger of an impending conflict… I hope the show can serve as a wakeup call to the Taiwanese people: what should we do when we still have the right to choose?”

There is no issue that is more important to US-China relations, and maybe to the fate of the planet, than the future of Taiwan.  I have described the background in three previous posts:  in 2021 (The Taiwan Conundrum), 2022 (The sheer stupidity of Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan) and 2023 (Is war over Taiwan inevitable?).  My main conclusions were:

1) Since Communists took control of the mainland in 1949, they have been extremely consistent and emphatic about their plans to make Taiwan part of China.  As Xi Jinping stated a few months ago in his New Year’s Eve address to the nation, “The reunification of the motherland is a historical inevitability.”

2) When it comes to responding to an invasion of Taiwan, the US has a policy of “strategic ambiguity.”  Under this purposely vague policy, the US strongly supports Taiwan both politically and militarily, but does not guarantee that it will help defend Taiwan if it is attacked.

In the 15 months since my most recent post on Taiwan, things have only gotten worse.  On May 20, Lai Ching-te was inaugurated President of Taiwan.  When Lai was Premier of Taiwan, he had “made headlines in 2017 by describing himself as ‘without a doubt… a politician who supports Taiwanese independence’ and [also said that he would] never change this stance, no matter what office I hold.’”

However, like almost every politician in the history of the world, Lai later changed his mind to get more votes.  Although he has “shifted his stance on Taiwan’s independence multiple times,” China still “considers Lai a dangerous separatist.”

The Institute for the Study of War publishes a “China-Taiwan Weekly Update” to report on military and political tensions, including incursions by Chinese military aircraft into the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), an area over and around the island. According to their most recent update (published on August 2):  “The PRC conducted at least 439 military incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone in July 2024, surpassing all previous months except August 2022… [when China] conducted… massive military exercises in response to then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan… July [was] the third consecutive month of significantly higher and rising numbers of ADIZ incursions… [since]Lai Ching-te took over.”

In response, “Taiwan’s government has been trying to improve its defenses by extending mandatory military service and revamping ongoing training for reservists as part of a broader shift in defense strategy designed to make Xi think twice before taking a gamble on use of force.”

No one in China or Taiwan or the US knows when or even if China will act to take over the island it considers a rightful part of its nation. 

I believe that Xi Jinping will continue to stand by a statement he has often repeated from former Chinese president Jiang Zemin that “Chinese will not fight Chinese.”  I have no doubt that China will one day achieve its goal of reunifying with Taiwan, almost certainly before the Communist government’s 100^th anniversary in 2049.  But I also believe they will wait for a relatively peaceful opportunity, act suddenly, and avoid the catastrophes depicted in “Zero Day.”