Taiwanese high schoolers spent two days playing out a regional war scare, a sign of how hard the island is pushing security awareness onto the next generation.

• A university team in Kaohsiung ran a two-day political-economic war game for 31 students from 16 southern Taiwan schools, with government funding.
• The scenario opened with a North Korean nuclear test in the Sea of Japan and pulled in the US, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
• Organizers kept adding shocks: Iran cutting energy supplies, a deadly ship clash near the Senkaku Islands, cut undersea cables, and the Ukraine war spilling onto NATO's border.
• The crisis ended in a regional military fight and an economic blockade of Taiwan, forcing students to trade off security, allies and trade under a ceasefire push.
• A new live system tracked every country's moves and used AI to write up strategy reports as the game unfolded.

Outlook: The organizers plan to turn the results into teaching material for more youth programs on reading Chinese pressure and building public resilience.