Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs An upcoming TV series, Zero Day, features a hypothetical Chinese offensive against Taiwan.The trailer for Zero Day was unveiled in Taipei on Tuesday during the capital’s annual air drill. The 17-minute trailer of the 10-episode series, partly funded by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture, depicts a crisis escalating from a Chinese “search and rescue mission” into a full-blown invasion.The trailer shows scenes of panic as China sets up a naval blockade, causing a bank run, and depicts the Taiwanese military retreating from Kinmen, an outlying island off China’s coast. It also includes a chilling broadcast to Taiwanese citizens from Chinese state media.Many Taiwanese netizens expressed anxiety over the trailer.
Taiwanese tanks open fire during an exercise simulating a beach invasion on July 24. The upcoming television drama “Zero Day” will feature a fictitious invasion of Taiwan by Chinese forces.
Taiwanese tanks open fire during an exercise simulating a beach invasion on July 24. The upcoming television drama “Zero Day” will feature a fictitious invasion of Taiwan by Chinese forces.
Taiwan Ministry of National Defense
“I cried when I saw the first scene,” one person commented on YouTube. “There are still many people in Taiwan who don’t know the seriousness of cognitive warfare. I hope this drama can wake up more people.”Some viewers were struck by the believability of Zero Day’s premise.”The trailer is too real, it is completely foreseeable that it will happen, and you can even imagine who will do those things,” one netizen wrote.Others expressed determination to stand up to any Chinese threat.”As a sergeant in the Army of the Republic of China, as long as I am alive, I will not allow my country’s land to be invaded by the Red, Army” one YouTube user commented.The project represents a risk for many of those involved because of the sensitivity of the topic in China. The allure of the 1.4 billion-strong market across the strait has prompted many Taiwanese in the entertainment industry to parrot Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China, a sentiment out of step with the views of most Taiwanese, polling consistently shows.Zero Day producer Cheng Shin-mei told Time that several directors and actors had left the project out of concern they’d face a backlash in China.”They usually have to sign contracts with clauses that forbid them to be involved in politically sensitive topics, and violators would need to pay for any loss caused by that,” she said.Newsweek reached out to the showrunners of Zero Day via email for comment.
As the trailer dropped, a siren could be heard around the city, while residents across northern Taiwan received a push notification on their phones warning them to shelter amid a “missile/rocket threat.”This week also saw Taiwanese forces carry out their annual Han Kuang series of war games, aimed at resisting an invasion.This year’s exercises, which ran from Monday to Friday, were updated to include what Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has called “unscripted” scenarios to better simulate wartime conditions, a change one defense analyst previously told Newsweek was adopted after the “wake-up call” of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.Taipei faces rising pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its territory though Beijing’s Chinese Communist Party-led government has never ruled on the island. Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed that eventual unification with Taiwan is inevitable, through force if necessary.China sends warplanes across the midline of the Taiwan Strait, a de facto buffer zone between the neighbors, on a near-daily basis. In May, Chinese forces surrounded Taiwan with air, ground, and sea-based drills following the inauguration of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, a Beijing critic who emphasized Taiwan’s sovereignty in his inaugural speech.CIA director Bill Burns and other U.S. officials have said they believe Xi is preparing his military to be capable of taking Taiwan by 2027.The Taiwanese and Chinese foreign ministries did not immediately respond to written requests for comment.
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