A view of Taipei's skyline along the bank of Tamsui River during sunset in Taipei on Sept. 16.YAN ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images
Taiwan’s Digital Affairs Minister says the island of 24 million would be keen on partnering with Canadian satellite operator Telesat Corp. TSAT-T on the backup internet system it’s building in case of emergency or military conflict.
Huang Yen-nun, who was appointed minister this spring by recently elected Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, said the Asian democracy requires multiple options for connecting with the outside world if disaster hits.
As The Globe and Mail reported last week, Telesat is pitching Taiwan on its planned low-Earth-orbit satellite internet service.
Mr. Huang, in an interview from his Taipei office Thursday, said the government has already met several times with Telesat.
“Definitely, we would be very interested in working with the company to provide alternative solutions to our network infrastructure,” he said.
“We have natural disasters. We also could have attacks from our neighbours.”
Taiwan is prone to earthquakes and typhoons, and it faces the threat of invasion from China.
It is brokering deals for access to satellite internet systems so it can stay connected if war disrupts the 15 undersea telecommunications cables that connect the island with other countries. These cables transmit everything from phone calls to videoconferencing to e-mails.
Since 2018, China has staged more than 10 military exercises around Taiwan, in an effort to intimidate the self-governed island that Beijing wants to annex. The Chinese Communist Party, which has never ruled Taiwan, considers it a breakaway province and has not excluded using force to take the territory. The U.S. military has repeatedly said it believes China aims to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.
Taiwan has vowed to construct its own satellite network and so far, its largest telecommunications company, Chunghwa Telecom Co., has signed an agreement with Britain-based Eutelsat OneWeb for low-Earth-orbit satellite service.
Mr. Huang said one satellite-provider deal is not enough. “We need to have more than one solution.”
He is one of two Taiwanese ministers – the other being National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Cheng-wen – who are expected to have a say in any decision on another satellite backup system for the island.
Representatives of Telesat met with officials of the Digital Affairs Ministry in mid-2024, a spokesperson for Mr. Huang said.
Richard Fadden, who sits on Telesat’s board and is a former national security adviser to Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper, also met with ministry officials during a visit to Taiwan in September.
Telesat is working with part of Taiwan’s government to demonstrate how its system operates. Part of Telesat’s pitch to Taiwan – standard for procurement deals such as this – would likely involve developing a supply chain that sources products on the island as part of an industrial benefits package.
Military experts say China would likely destroy Taiwan’s undersea cables early in a conflict and last year, Taiwan got a taste of how severing these cables could disrupt its ability to talk to the world.
In February, 2023, both submarine cables connecting Taiwan’s far-flung Matsu Islands to the internet were cut, reportedly by Chinese vessels, within a week of each other. The islands, the closest of which is nine kilometres from China, were reportedly without regular internet for 50 days, having to make do with extremely limited service via microwave radio transmitter until a specialized repair ship could arrive to fix the links.
“Digital resilience means that no matter what happens to Taiwan – a natural disaster, typhoon, earthquake, or even the cyberattacks or war – we still need to have a working communications network,” Mr. Huang said.
The other requirement is data backups, not only in Taiwan but also outside Taiwan in the cloud, he said.
As The Globe recently reported, Canada has posted a cyber attaché at its unofficial embassy in Taiwan as Ottawa deepens co-operation with Taipei over combatting computer hacking and disinformation, a significant amount of which originates in China. It’s part of a quietly blossoming security and intelligence relationship despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations. Canada’s official position is that it neither endorses nor challenges Beijing’s claim that the island is an “inalienable part” of China.
Mr. Huang said Taiwan is grateful for the increasing co-operation. He said cyberdamage to Taiwan’s semi-conductor industry – about 90 per cent of the world’s most advanced chip-manufacturing capacity is located on the island – could have cascading effects across Western supply chains.
Taiwan’s plight as the No. 1 target of Chinese cyberattacks has forced it to work doubly hard to protect computer systems on the island. Mr. Huang said every year his ministry will conduct security audits on more than 40 organizations, testing their cyberdefences.
“We would not only look at the infrastructure; we will try to attack – a red team attack – to see if we can break through their defences,” he said.