Four small Taiwanese parties are pushing local governments to prepare cities for war and disaster, a sign that civil defense is becoming a bigger issue in Taiwan's local politics as pressure from China stays high.

• The Taiwan Forward Alliance — Taiwan Statebuilding Party, New Power Party, Green Party Taiwan, and the Obasang Alliance — released a joint policy platform for local elections.
• The core idea is that "local governments must hold up" in a crisis, since national security cannot rest on the central government and military alone.
• They want civil defense training made routine and task-focused: air-raid evacuation, treating the wounded, and disaster reporting, with each city's training and drill participation rates made public.
• They call for a lightweight, fast-loading one-stop wartime information website with alerts, shelter locations, road closures, medical help, and supplies, arguing current "slowed internet" drills only test government systems, not public access.
• Other demands include mapping evacuation needs of people with disabilities, checking that shelters are wheelchair-accessible, and speeding up spread-out local energy systems so cities keep running if the grid is hit.

Outlook: The alliance is using civil defense as a shared campaign theme ahead of Taiwan's local elections, pressing mayors and county chiefs to act now under powers they already have by law.