Taiwan is scrambling to secure its communications with the outside world against an attack by China.
But even in peacetime it cannot quickly repair critical undersea Internet cables and lacks suitable satellite back-ups, experts and officials say.
China, which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, has ramped up military and political efforts to force the democratically governed island to accept its sovereignty.
The Ukraine war has lent new urgency to Taiwan's efforts to bolster its security, especially against Chinese cyberattacks or attempts to sever any of the 14 cables that connect it to the global Internet.
"Strategic communications, internally and externally, is what keeps us up at night, particularly in the aftermath of Ukraine," said Tzeng Yisuo, an analyst at Taiwan's top military think tank, the Institute for National Defence and Security Research.
Taiwan has zeroed in on low-Earth orbit satellites as a solution, and has launched a two-year trial to boost Internet services by leaning on international satellite providers.
Taiwan's total satellite bandwidth is about 0.02 per cent of what its undersea cables provide, according to Kenny Huang, chief executive at Taiwan Network Information Center, the island's Internet domain manager.
Huang said Taiwan has struggled to attract interest from international satellite companies because of strict regulations on ownership, which limit foreign shares to a maximum of 49 per cent, and a lack of financial sweeteners.
Defence experts say that although Taiwan can draw lessons from Ukraine's use of Starlink, a satellite network developed by Elon Musk's United States-based space exploration company SpaceX, they worry about relying on a commercial actor with business interests in China.
"Elon Musk, we are not certain if he cares more about China's market," Tzeng said, referring to Tesla's sales in China.
Taiwan is also strengthening the resilience of wartime communication channels for top commanders, including the president, according to one senior official and another person familiar with government efforts.
"We are taking notes from Zelenskiy," a senior Taiwan security official said, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's strong presence on social media.
Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs said in a statement that it would prioritise Taiwan's offshore islands for the satellite trial programme and would further increase the bandwidth for microwave communications with outlying islands by year-end. The ministry did not comment on sea cables or repairing them.
Taiwan's vulnerability was thrown into focus last month when the two undersea cables connecting the Taiwan-controlled Matsu islands, which sit close to the Chinese coast, were cut, disconnecting the 14,000 people who live there from the Internet.
Authorities said, initial findings showed a Chinese fishing vessel and freighter caused the disruption, but that there was no evidence Beijing deliberately tampered with the cables.
Chunghwa Telecom switched on a back-up microwave system that transmits signals from the top of a mountain in Taipei to Matsu, but that restored only about five per cent of the bandwidth that the cables provided.
This month, the government upgraded the system and Internet speed significantly improved. But because there are few cable repair ships in the region, residents must wait until late April for Internet access to be fully restored.
A senior Taiwan official said, sea cable vulnerability has long been a national security concern, and that it was "ridiculous" so little progress had been made to address the issue.
"Today, it's Matsu's sea cables that broke," he said. "What if one day all 14 of Taiwan's undersea cables connecting us to the outside world break? Will we be adequately prepared?"
China will probably take aim at Taiwan's sea cables or the cable landing stations before an all-out attack, experts say, a move that would cause panic, paralyse commercial activity, and help Beijing gain control over the international narrative.
"In a state of emergency, people will want to get information," said Chieh Chung, a military researcher at the National Policy Foundation, a Taipei-based think tank. "If they can't get information, people's panic will spread."
The writers are from the Reuters news agency
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times