A wave of national optimism is sweeping through Taiwan's tech sector. In recent months, university teams have logged successful in-orbit communications, while domestic telecom giants have secured high-profile partnerships with global low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks.
But Chou Yu-ping (周宇平), a former director at Taiwan's Missile Command, wants to inject some cold discipline into the celebration.
"Taiwan has already missed strategic windows in many industries," Chou warns. "We cannot afford the cost of only saying what sounds good."
Chou's critique cuts straight through the political hype. Taipei, he argues, is confusing photogenic milestones with genuine strategic capability. While rocket launches, successful data handshakes, and international memoranda of understanding make for compelling press conferences, they measure the wrong things. What Taiwan actually needs to sustain a space-based communications architecture under geopolitical pressure remains largely unbuilt, underfunded, and invisible to the public.
The Component Trap
Chou does not dismiss Taiwan's established strengths. The island's prowess in ICT supply chains, precision electronics, radio frequency (RF) modules, and ground terminal integration is globally recognized. Domestic firms have successfully locked themselves into the global space supply chain.
The problem, as Chou frames it, is category confusion: Taiwan excels at building components, but it has not yet mastered systems.
The critical technologies required for a satellite to survive long-term in the harsh environment of space remain largely outside Taiwan's domestic grasp. The island still relies on foreign providers for radiation-hardened integrated circuits, autonomous navigation software, and attitude and orbit control systems (AOCS).
Chou points to precision orbital injection as a glaring, underappreciated gap. LEO satellites cannot simply be lofted into orbit and left to find their place; they must be placed into exact orbital planes and time windows to function within a broader constellation. Any deviation forces the spacecraft to burn its razor-thin propellant margins on corrective manoeuvres, drastically shortening its operational lifespan.
Compounding this is a near-total dependency on foreign launches. Because Taiwan lacks large-scale indigenous rockets, its satellites must hitch rides on international commercial missions. In peacetime, that is a commercial inconvenience. In a cross-strait crisis, it becomes a critical national security liability.
"The control," Chou notes, "is still in someone else's hands."
The Invisible Validation Gap
Beyond the engineering hurdles lies a deeper institutional failure: Taiwan lacks a structured pathway to translate civilian tech expertise into defence-grade aerospace hardware.
While academic breakthroughs at institutions like National Taipei University of Technology deserve credit, laboratory success does not equal mass industrial production — and industrial production does not equal military-grade reliability.
Bridging that gap requires rigorous verification infrastructure that Taiwan has simply failed to build. The island currently lacks standardised in-orbit flight heritage verification, third-party military certification protocols, and shared space-environment simulation facilities.
Without a national platform to socialise these risks, Taiwan's private sector — mostly comprised of small and medium enterprises — cannot afford to push into higher-complexity territory. A single satellite failure can cost tens of millions of dollars, enough to cripple a local firm. As a result, private companies remain effectively locked out of the high-value strategic segments where real space power resides.
Using vs. Controlling
Chou draws a sharp line between using a space architecture and controlling one.
While Taiwanese telecoms have moved aggressively to partner with international LEO networks like OneWeb and Amazon's Project Kuiper, these deals ultimately entrench a structural dependency. A true satellite constellation is not a static infrastructure project with a completion date; it is a permanent, high-attrition operational commitment requiring continuous manufacturing replacement cycles, space traffic management, and around-the-clock cybersecurity.
If Taipei continues to measure success by the number of satellites launched rather than building a comprehensive constellation management model, it risks massive fiscal exposure without any real strategic independence. In a wartime scenario, the calculus sharpens: what matters is not how many satellites are in orbit, but whether they can withstand electronic jamming, cyberattacks, and ground station disruption.
A Roadmap for Reform
To pivot from public relations success to hard-nosed resilience, Chou outlines three recommendations for Taiwanese policymakers.
First, the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) must evolve from a passive funding distributor into an active platform builder — concentrating resources on shared, standardised in-orbit verification and military-grade testing infrastructure, rather than dispersing subsidies across duplicative component programmes.
Second, the metrics used to evaluate space policy need an overhaul. Satellites launched and partnerships signed are the wrong indicators. Government agencies should instead track autonomous critical technology shares, anti-jamming capabilities, cybersecurity resilience, and wartime operational continuity.
Third, Taiwan must fuse its deep operational experience in electronic warfare, tactical communications, and unmanned systems with its LEO satellite programmes to build a unified, resilient civil-military platform — one capable of functioning when it is needed most.
The Bottom Line
Taiwan possesses undeniable assets: a world-class semiconductor ecosystem, a dominant ICT supply chain, and a highly agile private sector. But these advantages are currently being applied to the visible, photogenic edges of the space industry while the load-bearing interior goes unattended.
"Space is not a romantic industry," Chou concludes. "It is, at its core, a high-attrition, high-risk, high-barrier strategic competition among major powers."
Taiwan has the pieces. The defining question is whether it has the political resolve to build the system. （Related： Exclusive | Pei Minxin: Beijing Won Nothing Lasting from the Trump–Xi Summit ｜ Latest ）
