Taiwan is stepping up civil and military preparedness as pressure from China keeps rising, a positive signal for Taiwan's allies and a warning shot to Beijing.

• President Lai Ching-te said his job is to make Taiwan better prepared and strong enough to keep the status quo, so peace can't be broken by one-sided provocation.
• Taiwan's defense budget has doubled over the past decade and will top NT$1 trillion next year, staying above 3% of GDP with a goal of 5% by 2030.
• This year's Han Kuang war games and urban resilience drills were the biggest joint military-civilian exercise in Taiwan's history, with 20,000 reservists and nearly 10,000 civil servants taking part.
• For the first time, the drills included a mobile network slowdown covering 17 million people so the public could practice using backup communications.
• Lai framed the effort as democracies "exporting confidence" through resilience while authoritarian powers try to export fear and split allies.

Outlook: Taiwan will keep raising defense spending and running whole-of-society drills, leaning on partners like the US, Japan, the Philippines, and NATO for shared know-how.