A new board game set against the backdrop of a hypothetical war between China and Taiwan will be released in January 2025 amid the Chinese communist regime’s looming invasion threats.
The game 2045, developed by Taiwanese board game maker Mizo Games, simulates potential scenarios of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan 20 years from now. Players are given different roles to participate in the imaginary war, including Taiwanese army officers, Chinese sleeper agents, pro-China politicians working to sabotage the island’s defense, and volunteer citizen fighters to defend their homeland.
China has significantly increased its military actions near Taiwan in recent years. Taiwan, whose official name is the Republic of China (ROC), is the last territory of the republic established in 1911 in China. The ROC’s nationalist government retreated to Taiwan in 1949 after being defeated by the communists in China’s civil war. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) then established a communist regime in mainland China known as the People’s Republic of China. The CCP has never ruled Taiwan, but it claims sovereignty over the island and has never ruled out annexation of it by force.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te and the Taiwanese government have opposed China’s sovereignty claims and say only the Taiwanese people can determine their own future.
Against the backdrop of a military invasion, Chang Shao Lian, founder of Mizo Games, told Reuters that he wanted “players to feel they want to win and think about what they will do to win.”
A Taiwanese TV series titled “Zero Day,” which also depicts the fictional scenario of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, is scheduled to air in 2025.
Taiwanese officials are preparing for various situations in the Taiwan Strait, including armed conflict with China.
The exercises were to test and enhance the readiness and resilience of Taiwan’s government agencies and civil society in the face of crises, according to authorities.
Chung Chih-tung, an assistant research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times on Dec. 31, 2024, that entertainment products have a positive effect on “raising citizens’ awareness and vigilance, while the military is always preparing for war.”
The development of the 2045 game shows that ordinary people in Taiwan are very concerned about China’s military threat and use various means to strengthen the will of the Taiwanese people to resist the enemy, according to Shen Ming-shih, director of the Division of National Security Research at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
Possibility of Invasion
Shen told The Epoch Times that he believes that the possibility of China’s invasion of Taiwan in the near future, such as in 2027, has decreased “because of China’s economic slowdown, military corruption, and possible U.S. involvement if an armed conflict broke out in the Taiwan Strait.”
However, Shen warned that the Chinese regime might conduct various gray zone operations against Taiwan instead, “such as high-intensity military exercises surrounding Taiwan, infiltration, and sabotage on the island, especially targeting those critical infrastructures that are related to people’s livelihood.” He calls for the strengthening of Taiwan’s ability to counter such operations from China.
Chung shares a similar assessment that it may not be possible for the CCP to invade the main island of Taiwan in the short term, but he doesn’t rule out the possibility of the CCP’s military incursions into Taiwan’s outer islands, “such as Kinmen, Matsu, Pratas Islands, and Itu Aba Island.”
“It’s still military conflict, but of different scale,” he said.
The new board game 2045 will also hit the U.S. and European markets later in 2025.
