Taiwan taking an all of society approach

There was this opinion piece in the Washington Post, Taiwan’s president: I will boost defense spending to protect our democracy

Generally, the piece is all about military spending to counter China’s own military preparations to take back the island of Taiwan at some point in the future. Weapons, defense spending, etc. are the guts of the opinion piece.

But then, there was this small reference to “disasters” that was included in the text, “Furthermore, we will broaden coordination both domestically and with international partners. Last year, we established a top-level Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee, improving collaboration among government, military and civic groups so that our society can better respond to disasters, both man-made and natural. These preparations will continue to intensify.”

They have the behemoth China only 112 miles away, so defense is something they need to take seriously. Hence, they are looking to meld an all of society effort, not only to counter China, but also the potential for natural disasters. Might we do something like this ourselves at some point? And I’m not referring to some form of threat from Mexico or Canada. Just taking a more coordinated and collaborative approach to disaster preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery.