On a sunny morning in Taipei last August, I joined a few dozen other people at the headquarters of the Kuma Academy for an introductory course in civil defense. We broke into groups to introduce ourselves. As our group leader presented us to the room, she mistakenly called me a “war correspondent.”
“No, no, that’s not right,” I interjected. “I’m here because I precisely don’t want to become a war correspondent in the future.”
The Kuma Academy, established in September 2022, trains citizens in the basic skills they might need to survive and help their compatriots in the event of an attack. Civil defense has been on many people’s minds in Taiwan since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “If China Attacks,” a book covering potential scenarios for a Chinese invasion — co-written by Kuma Academy co-founder Puma Shen — has become a bestseller.
