Hong Kíng-Bûn on War and Emergency Responsiveness

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/07/18

Hong Kíng-Bûn, the founder of the Taiwanese Humanist Institute and Humanistic Pastafarianism in Taiwan, dedicates his efforts to civil defense and the revitalization of the Taiwanese language. Drawing inspiration from Greco-Roman and non-Abrahamic traditions, they firmly believe that humanism should form the bedrock for constructing stable family values and fostering a fertile society.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We can even discuss the institutes you’re running. So, would you prefer to discuss Taiwanese culture, the institutes, or humanistic post-authoritarianism? Is there any area that you prefer?

Hong Kíng-Bûn: Oh, okay. So, to face the potential risk of war, I started to do civil defence work. Now, we are the licensing institute for disaster relief volunteering. We work with the Ministry of Interior Affairs to license volunteers for disasters. So, we have official status. Why would we do that? Because if we only look at what happened in the Ukrainian war, the war is not only about armies. From many perspectives, it’s about the resistance of your city and society. Don’t surrender. At the beginning of the war, we saw how communication between the army leadership and civilians was disconnected during the war. There was much misinformation, like false claims that Zelensky had surrendered, escaped, etc. It would help if you surrendered to the Russians, and you’d be fine. 

This misinformation needs to be prevented in our society. Because if we don’t surrender, we will win. We will win at last. Landing an army in Taiwan is extremely difficult because only seven beaches are available for landing. Of course, we are prepared for this. So we know where they will come from. We have advanced weapons, drones, aircraft, and missiles. We have 6,000 missiles targeting China, while they only have 2,000 targeting us. Most of our missiles are defensive, but still, we have a larger number. We have more advanced ships. We provide the world’s most advanced chips as semiconductors, making our missiles more accurate. Even if they successfully land on our beach, the United States Navy can easily block the supply chain between Taiwan and China. 

Those armies in Taiwan will stop. They will lose. All hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the PLA, the Chinese army, will surrender and disappear. China will have no army to protect itself from India, Vietnam, maybe Russia, and Islamic States like ISIS. ISIS wants to conflict with China; they have claimed that and have done so. Yes, they have conflicts around the whole empire. The border is too large. They can’t afford to lose hundreds of thousands of their army on a small island. We can easily do that with the superior United States Navy. They don’t need to do anything but wait. It’s a trap. Taiwan is a trap for the mouse. We are the cheese. If they grab it, they come, and they are done. There will be no China in the world.

Jacobsen: Do you think another loss will be immediate?

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, immediately. Public opinion, global public opinion. You can’t fight without a supply chain. No one in the world can beat the United States Navy.

Jacobsen: Yes. The number of supercarriers alone is a big indication.

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, that’s true. The United States has friends around the region — the Philippines, Japan, and Vietnam. They are all willing to support the United States’ logistics issues. The world and Russia will block China.

Jacobsen: And another big thing is, immediately upon the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the General Assembly of the United Nations put forward emergency resolution ES/11–1. That General Assembly resolution condemned the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as well as the other annexations of land. The number that voted for that resolution to condemn the war was 141. The number against was 5. So, Ukraine had an enormous global opinion in their favour.

Kíng-Bûn: Of course.

Jacobsen: I suspect a similar thing would happen.

Kíng-Bûn: That was way more important for the global economy and had decades of relationship with Western society. We are allies after World War II. Ukraine was on the other side during the Cold War. So, Taiwan and Ukraine will be in a completely different situation.

Jacobsen: And the world is too globalized to mess around with any particular nation with war. The way to beat a country is culturally, in many ways — soft power. If you don’t fight with soft power, instead of exporting things that people buy into, you will have trouble. So, the Russia-Ukraine war was a big indication. What mistakes have been made in trying to help Taiwan but failing to do so? So, things that are good intentions have a positive impact. The funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan from the United States. That’s a good example. A bad example would be something; I am still determining what it might be. I’m asking because you live there, so this is your area of expertise where something has good intentions from another country but has bad effects.

Kíng-Bûn: Apprehensive stuff?

Jacobsen: Apprehensive stuff. 

Kíng-Bûn: United Nations! It can’t solve anything.

Jacobsen: I see.

Kíng-Bûn: It’s worse than the World Conference between a few superpowers in the 19th century. It’s worse than that. In the 19th century, only two or three superpowers could determine anything globally. Now, the United Nations can’t even deal with themselves. The United States is learning how to rule the world. It’s fine. It would help if you had time.

Jacobsen: What was the risk you mentioned for China if they invaded Taiwan?

Kíng-Bûn: They have risks from terrorist groups like ISIS. These groups are openly claiming they want to invade. They claimed to start a war with China in 2014 during the Syrian war. They already did that. They absorbed many Uyghur warriors into ISIS from Uyghurs everywhere. They’re collecting them, giving them weapons and training. They have good weapons from the United States during the wars in Syria and Afghanistan. They have practical training in the Syrian war and Afghanistan, too. They have monetary support from around the globe. Their financing is incredible. They don’t have to spend money to rule people. They need to be like communists in the 19th century.

Jacobsen: And so, you’re speaking to the treatment of Uyghurs in China. That resentment is feeding into getting recruits for ISIS.

Kíng-Bûn: ISIS wants to conquer the whole Islamic world. But in reality, they need to find an easy place, an easy cake to eat. So that’s why they escaped from Syria. Their main base was in Syria and Iraq. Most of their founding members are from there. But why do they come to Afghanistan? Because Afghanistan makes it easier for them to survive. The weaponry and the political power in that region are easier for them. They have more space there. If China faces a crisis on its own, it will seek the chance to conquer China. They will do that. Communists originally wanted to conquer Europe, Britain, and Germany according to their theory. They believed communism would arise from a capitalist country. But they finally went to Russia China, and Cambodia. What can they do? 

They will lose in the West, so they go East. That’s how it works. So, China needs to think about it. That’s why I practice civil defence. Because you have to learn how to build a shelter, rescue people, basic lifesaving skills, and how the government supports disaster relief, you will have more security in your mind. When you face that situation, you can start doing what you should during the training. You will have scripts and a disaster response plan during the training. You don’t need other orders. You start from your community, maybe a company, maybe a village. It depends on who provides the training. That’s what we did. So you can rely on this preparation. Wait for three to four days without surrendering, the command structure will come back. The communication will come back. You will realize what happened during those days. You don’t need to feel insecure during those days. We are in the war zone. That’s what we do. We started licensing people in 2023. But we trained people starting in 2020. So it has been years.

Jacobsen: How long is the training?

Kíng-Bûn: For the volunteer license, you need 15 hours of training.

Jacobsen: That’s alright. That’s quick.

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, that’s quick. That’s another issue. But it’s voluntary, so you can’t be professionalized. But we also train for the “stop the bleed” procedures. Three hours or eight hours is basic lifesaving. Or eight to 15 hours for TCCC, the technical medical treatment applied in war. We train that, too. We do maneuvers, we do military games with the soldiers. We’ve done that before. 

Jacobsen: So, to sum up, is a conflict inevitable? Is that the general message?

Kíng-Bûn: It’s not. If China is stable, it will go well, and war will not be inevitable. But the reality is not stable. If everything goes wrong, they will not have the strength to attack Taiwan. By 2030, they won’t have the capability to attack Taiwan. Because after 2030, we allies will be all prepared. We will have way more advanced weapons and way more advanced resources. Their carriers, ships, and missiles will all be getting old and outdated. So, they will have no chance after 2030. So we need to wait.

Jacobsen: In real terms, it would even be a very costly war for them.

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, they will lose 100%. If we don’t surrender, they will lose.

Jacobsen: That would be not very comfortable.

Kíng-Bûn: Okay, maybe not 100%. But the only way they can win is if they nuke us at the beginning of the war. If they nuke us with 20 to 30 nukes to destroy most of our soldiers and military bases, then they can come, and no one will dare to come to help us.

Jacobsen: Do you think China would use nuclear weapons in any war?

Kíng-Bûn: If they want to win, this is the only way. Why can’t Putin use nuclear weapons? Because now, they are fighting. If your army retreats, Ukraine will chase up. So you can’t put a nuke in this area; you will hurt yourself. So, the only chance to use a nuke is at the beginning of the war. You nuke and destroy half of the army; they are all in chaos, and nobody can deal with the situation. Then you can come to occupy this wasteland. That’s the only way they can win. If they dare to do that, okay, fine. I accept that. I accept your courage. Do you want to destroy the world? I will not listen to your threats if you don’t dare to do that. Putin is a clown. It’s funny. He says, “Oh, I will nuke, I will nuke,” but it never happens.

Jacobsen: Is there anything else that we should cover on these particular topics? Regarding the training in the geopolitics area.

Kíng-Bûn: It would be good if Canadians, Americans, or other countries, like the Japanese, had a civil defence system to communicate with us. Then, we can cooperate internationally to share experiences and supplies. It’s costly to rescue people. So, yes, we can do that. We can try to find funding from our government; they support international diplomatic efforts. So, if anyone is working in this industry or these affairs, the CERT, C-E-R-T, and the Community Emergency Response Team in the United States, we are very welcome to hold an international conference in the first place. Yes, we can do something together to support Taiwan in different professional ways, not only by providing support on the website and typing articles.

Jacobsen: Thank you so much.

Kíng-Bûn: Thank you very much, too.

Jacobsen: Take care.

Kíng-Bûn: Take care.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.