ZERO DAY ATTACK- A WARNING SHOT FOR TAIWAN

Episode 1 of the Taiwanese TV drama “Zero Day Attack” (零日攻击) introduced viewers to the lead-up to a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan from the viewpoints of politicians involved in a fraught transition of power to convey the broad geopolitical and social implications of an invasion. Instead of continuing to focus on decision makers, episodes 2 and 3 offer a more granular view of how ordinary people are affected by the looming crisis. This is in line with the show’s intended anthology format, with each of its ten episodes highlighting how different groups of people within Taiwanese society are affected by a potential Chinese invasion.

Episodes 2 and 3 are especially notable for their focus on interpersonal relationships between characters, serving to humanize the often-abstract notion of geopolitical conflict by demonstrating how decisions taken in the corridors of power can affect the most intimate aspects of people’s lives. In episode 2, Wu Kai-Jui is a struggling working-class youth whose desire to build a better life for himself and his girlfriend Min-Hsien Jen forms the basis of his central conflict, eventually leading him to engage with Chinese proxy actors. While episode 3 concerns itself with Chinese infiltration of the Taiwanese tech sector, a key part of the episode focuses on the Taiwanese news anchor Hsia Yu-Shan, and her relationship with an erstwhile college love interest turned tech executive, the Japanese businessman Fujiwara Isamu. The common focus on romantic relationships conveys the message that regardless of socio-economic standing, everyone from high-flying professionals to those struggling to get by, is vulnerable to having their lives instrumentalised and wrecked by a conflict that comes to encompass society as a whole. 

Economic and Social Pressures

The characters in episodes 2 and 3 are affected by China’s increasingly threatening moves against Taiwan, but the way in which they react to events is heavily conditioned by their respective positions within Taiwanese society. The portrayal of Taiwanese society and the subsequent critiques of its internal structures form the bulk of the messaging in the episodes, expanding on the previously introduced theme of how internal weaknesses and fissure points are far more threatening to Taiwanese resilience in the face of invasion than external actions. 

In both episodes, a key factor constraining the choices available to characters is the necessity of economic subsistence in a capitalist system. In episode 2, Wu Kai-Jui works part-time at a local department store, and his girlfriend Min-Hsien Jen at a small eatery. Both live with their parents, and Kai-Jui’s idea of fun consists of taking Hsien Jen on ‘dates’ where they illegally enter luxury apartments that are on sale, to spend a few hours pretending to lead a life they cannot have. When Hsien Jen becomes pregnant and the couple resolves to keep the baby, the financial strain that falls upon them leads Kai-Jui to become increasingly disillusioned with Taiwanese society and government. This plot line is likely to especially resonate with the frustration of younger Taiwanese viewers who feel the squeeze of rising housing prices, real-wage stagnation or even decline, and finding it increasingly difficult to have children. 

While most of Fujiwara Isamu’s backstory preceding episode 3 transpires off-screen, he tells Hsia Yu-Shan that ‘few people realize their youthful dreams’ when she remembers his fondness for collecting plants during their college days. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he says, almost as if he is trying to reconcile his unrequited love for a Taiwanese woman with the fact that in pursuit of professional success, he has come to work for a Chinese tech firm that is actively part of the hybrid campaign against Taiwan. 

The Price of Decency

The episodes’ most incisive critiques, however, are reserved for social norms and structures which intersect with economic incentives to directly undermine Taiwan’s security. In episode 3, the news station where Hsia Yu-Shan works is portrayed as being a misogynistic work environment, with female staff implicitly being promoted on the basis of attractiveness and how willing they are to mollify the men in charge. Yu-Shan directing most of her ire at the “weather girl” who is seeking a higher position, constitutes a pointed nod to how patriarchy pits women against each other for the benefit of commonly oppressive power structures. The show’s depiction of workplace discrimination recalls previously introduced themes of sexism and women’s rights issues in Taiwan, but also conveys how said discrimination can impact professional quality. In the episode, Yu-Shan lands in trouble with the station executives for being unwilling to broadcast news related to the Chinese aggression against Taiwan before it has been fact-checked, and in the end, the running of ostensibly false news stories serves to aid Chinese propaganda efforts.

The show’s clearest messaging on this front comes in episode 2. When a friend of Wu Kai-Jui’s takes him to a nightclub owned by ‘Big John’, a news presenter with criminal ties, Kai-Jui is initially appalled by the violence he witnesses and declines the opportunity to make easy money. Far from being rewarded for doing the right thing however, mainstream society seems to consistently punish him for well-meaning actions. At some point in the past, his efforts to find work led to his implied entrapment by a human trafficking operation, and his going into debt to avoid being press-ganged to Cambodia, in a plausible reference to real-world China-based trafficking rackets. His promotion at the department store where he works is delayed as he is punished for handing out leftover food to a poor old woman who lives nearby. When he begins working a second job as a food-delivery boy, the police fine him for alleged irregularities with his scooter. Finally, his girlfriend’s father thrashes him in public, under the false assumption that Kai-Jui has assaulted his daughter. The final straw comes when Hsien Jen leaves him to go to Thailand, a refugee of the looming war. He ends up joining the gang after all.0

The show’s message, both from the news station in episode 3 and Kai-Jui’s tragic arc in episode 2, is very clear. For liberal democracy to be truly worth defending, and for its citizens to truly wish to defend it, the system must actually be liberal and democratic for all. When fundamentally decent people are systematically denied a chance to prove their worth and are belittled and trodden on, democracy and national security are eroded.

Multi-Domain Subversion

While episodes 2 and 3 primarily function as an examination of Taiwanese society, and how the structural issues within it can complement Chinese hybrid warfare efforts, those efforts themselves are also worth mentioning. Once again, Zero Day Attack uses parallels with real-world events to create fictional scenarios that are frighteningly plausible.

‘Big John’s’ network of legal and criminal enterprises in episode 2 seems to be an amalgamation of the pro-China China Times Media Group, as well as gangster-turned politicians such as Chang An-Lo, head of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP). In the show, Big John’s ‘reputable’ news show engages in pro-China propaganda (we see him questioning the validity of the presidential elections in episode 1), while his gang attacks and intimidates political opponents. In episode 3 meanwhile, the full gamut of Chinese hybrid war efforts is on display. Fake videos showing Chinese missile attacks circulate on social media, shortly before cyberattacks result in an island-wide internet outage, echoing the real life use of mass cyberattacks (2.4 million were detected in 2024) and AI-generated videos by China against Taiwan’s information space. The effect of such combination of tactics is clear in the show- to sow chaos and panic within Taiwan, and critically undermine the will to resist before hostilities have even begun. 

Resilience after all?

Episode 2 of Zero Day Attack ends on a harrowingly plausible note. Wu Kai-Jui takes part in an attack on peaceful demonstrators outside the legislature. They don white shirts and attack the protesters with batons, in an image that is eerily reminiscent of the white-shirted Hong Kong triad gangsters who carried out the Yuen Long attacks against pro-democracy protestors in 2019. In a perverse inversion of his erstwhile dreams of fatherhood, Kai-Jui attacks a pregnant woman, with fatal consequences for her and her unborn child.

As frightening as the image presented is, the overall message of both episodes is considerably more ambiguous. In episode 3, the authoritarianism of the Chinese state backfires when the kidnapping (and possible killing) of a tech CEO prompts his daughter to leak sensitive information to Taiwanese media, facilitated by Fujiwara Isamu and Hsia Yu-Shan. Notably, the cyberattacks in the episode are facilitated by Chinese chips in Taiwanese internet infrastructure. The series apparently unfolds in an alternate universe where Taiwan’s semiconductor giant TSMC doesn’t exist- without the world’s most important chipmaker, Taiwan is vulnerable. As the series counts down to a possible military conflict, it seems to indicate: this is what could happen if Taiwan isn’t prepared. Zero Day Attack thus poses a provocative question to its audience: Is the real Taiwan ready? Going by episodes 2 and 3 so far, it needs to look inwards to know.

This is the second of a six-part series analyzing the Taiwanese TV series ‘Zero Day Attack’ for the Organization for Research on China and Asia’s (ORCA) ‘Reviewing Chinese Culture’ segment. Read Part 1 here.