Written by Yingtai Lung.
Image credit: “Dou Dou” by the author.
Chicken Feed
I keep thirty chickens, all with names, on Taiwan’s eastern coast, where the Pacific presses against the shore with the rhythm of a lullaby. The birds love the sea breezes and the grain. Every few weeks, I drive into the village to buy their feed. The bags are stacked in a small shop that smells of pesticides and grain. Thirty kilos of shredded corn costs less than 12 US dollars.
One afternoon, as the shopkeeper and I were heaving a sack onto my car, a man, apparently also a chicken farmer, said quietly, “You’ll need to store feed when war breaks out.”
I thought I had misheard, but he went on matter-of-factly: “Taiwan imports most of its feed grains—primarily corn and soybeans from the United States and Brazil.”
”When the blockade starts,” he said, “the feed disappears in a few days. You’ll end up eating your pet chickens.”
I was astonished. Such a conversation occurs at tables in Taipei, where I meet journalists and policymakers. But here I am, standing among stacks of animal feed in the most remote part of Taiwan. The bag suddenly felt heavy. It is one thing to contemplate a naval blockade in the abstract; quite another to imagine anxious villagers lining up outside that little feed shop, hoping for one more sack that may not arrive.
That evening, I flew to Taipei to take part in a war game as an observer. The room was windowless, the screens bright, the scenarios stark. There have been many war games, both in Taipei and in Washington. In some simulations—like those run by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2023—fleets sink, thousands die, and Taiwan’s navy vanishes. These models estimate missiles and sortie rates; they cannot capture how panic spreads when feed runs out, or how fear distorts judgment long before the first missile flies.
A bag of grain is the opposite of a missile system: domestic, trivial, humble. It rarely appears in strategic debates, yet it will be among the first to vanish in a blockade. Here, a crisis becomes real. It stands for the systems—food, energy, communication, security, trust—that erode before a shot is fired. And it is a sharp reminder of the work we have barely begun.
Diplomacy Is Strength
Taiwan is in many ways preparing for war: increasing defence budgets, buying fighter planes and drones, staging simulations, recruiting soldiers; the government has even distributed a wartime instruction manual to every household. Yet the fragile human elements of crisis—ambiguity, fear, and misread signals that can turn accidents into catastrophe—receive far less attention. Much of the focus is on how a war might start, not on how one might be prevented.
Sometimes, preparations extend beyond battle. Japan, for instance, has established a direct defence hotline with China as part of a broader maritime and air communication mechanism intended to prevent miscalculation or accidental clashes. Likewise, the United States Institute of Peace has in the past developed “PeaceGames,” simulations focused on crisis diplomacy and escalation control.
Military strength is necessary, but on its own, it can be brittle. A society cannot be defended by hardware alone. Arms do matter, but so does judgment; missiles deter, but so can diplomacy. Taiwan, in this light, could benefit from a second line of defence: a sustained effort to widen the space for calm and to build de-escalation mechanisms.
For decades, Taiwan’s political discourse has often equated goodwill with weakness, defining strength largely in military terms. Yet diplomacy is also a form of strength. One poorly chosen word can trigger escalation; one measured gesture can help contain it. Efforts to reduce risk with China are not driven by naiveté or sentimentalism, but by hard calculation in crisis management.
This approach has precedent. During the Cold War, modest cultural and academic exchanges helped US and Soviet leaders keep channels open even in moments of hostility. They did not resolve the conflict, but helped prevent tensions from hardening into irreversible decisions. Today, across Southeast Asia, governments often rely on informal diplomacy—professional associations, religious networks, cultural exchanges—to keep disputes contained when official channels grow taut.
Such tools address what military models cannot: perception, empathy, patience, and the avoidance of humiliation. Diplomacy can also strengthen Taiwan internally. It reminds citizens that Taiwan’s identity is shaped not only by political solidarity, division, or defiance under threat, but also by its own creativity, resilience, and everyday competence. It suggests that Taiwan is more than just a potential flashpoint. In fact, the Taiwanese have lived under the shadow of war for nearly eight decades, and out of that shadow have built a society with a strong economy and a vibrant democracy. What they have shown is that calmness and resilience are already part of their character.
Geopolitics Begins with the Ordinary
Preparedness takes many forms and often comes down to concrete details. Imagine Taiwan’s most dangerous week: a midair collision over the Strait; a cyberattack that breeds suspicion; a natural disaster that raises tension along with the floodwaters or earthquakes. In that week, Taiwan’s leaders must decide what to say, what not to say, and whom to call. Twenty-three million people will look for reassurance. And quietly, shortages will begin—including feed.
Or consider the next 12 months. Analysts across borders and disciplines have identified 2027 as a potential peak-risk window. Twelve months is long enough for supplies to dwindle, for misinformation to corrode trust, for a rumour to become a belief, and a belief to harden into a political agenda.
In light of this, internal clarity will be essential—communication channels people can trust, leaders who explain risk without inflaming it, and institutions that model calm rather than panic. The goal is not complacency, but the cultivation of steady resilience—enough to navigate crises without unravelling.
Or suppose we have a decade. There may be time to consider the next generation—what kind of place Taiwan should become. Will it remain a flashpoint, or become a society that marries technological sophistication with cultural creativity, strategic clarity with emotional intelligence—a place where trains and buses run on time, schools and hospitals remain open, voting booths are orderly and peaceful, and feed shops see no lines? Whatever the future holds, the roadmap and groundwork must start now.
Every time I lift a feed bag into my car, I am reminded that geopolitics begins with the ordinary: grain, gas, sewage, bandages, traffic lights, and trust in strangers. War games show how quickly we can lose these things. Peace games—diplomacy and crisis management—may teach us how to protect them.
Taiwan must prepare for peace with the same seriousness it brings to preparing for war. Peace, like feed, must be stored before it is needed. Shortages—of grain, of calm, of trust, of confidence—begin quietly. And the smallest things—trust, restraint, goodwill—are what keep a crisis from becoming a catastrophe.
The bag of feed keeps me up at night. But it also points to what Taiwan must learn next: not only to fortify its defences, but to cultivate diplomacy and resilience—so those defences may never be used.
Lung Yingtai was Taiwan’s first Minister of Culture (2012-2014) and has taught at universities in the United States, Germany, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Her career as an author spans published articles, cultural criticisms, novels, essays, and nonfiction works, including The Wild Fire and Big River, Big Sea – Untold Stories of 1949. She now resides in an indigenous village overlooking the Pacific in eastern Taiwan.