Taiwan Gingerly Tests How It Would Cope if China Choked Its Internet

The 30-minute simulated disruption was part of the island’s effort to test and build people’s resilience in the face of a potential Chinese attack. People checked their phones outside a department store in Taichung, Taiwan, on Monday. By Chris Buckley and Amy Chang Chien For half an hour on Monday, mobile data was throttled across central Taiwan, leaving millions of people unable to stream videos or share photos or make video calls on their cellphones. The interruption was deliberate: Taiwan was testing, for the first time on a mass scale, how the island might cope if a Chinese attack disrupted its communications. The activity was part of Taiwan’s annual civil defense exercise, when the government tries to give citizens a sense, albeit a fleeting one, of how they should respond if China tried to seize the self-governed island by force.

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