Taiwan Moves to Exempt Starlink From Ownership Rules to Shore Up Wartime Connectivity

Taiwan's parliament is set to amend its telecommunications law to clear a legal path for Elon Musk's Starlink to operate on the island, part of an effort to strengthen communications resilience against the threat of a Chinese blockade or invasion. The self-ruled island has no low Earth orbit satellites of its own and depends on subsea telecoms cables to connect to the rest of the world.

Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory and has ramped up military pressure in recent years. Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom has already struck deals with several foreign satellite companies, including European firm Eutelsat, to provide back-up telecommunications in case of war or natural disaster. Starlink, which dominates the global satellite communications sector with thousands of satellites in orbit, is not among them, deterred by requirements for a Taiwanese chairperson and a foreign ownership cap of 49 percent.

To address that, lawmakers want to amend the Telecommunications Management Act to allow a case-by-case review process that could exempt companies such as Starlink from those rules. The proposed changes have already been approved by a parliamentary committee, backed by the opposition Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party, which control parliament, and President Lai Ching-te's Democratic Progressive Party. Parliament is expected to pass the amendments after a third reading as early as Friday.

"If a cross-strait conflict were to break out and CCP cut all of Taiwan's submarine cables, Taiwan would have virtually no means of communicating with the outside world," said KMT legislator Huang Chien-hao, who cited the use of Starlink in the Iran-US war and the Russia-Ukraine war. KMT lawmaker Ko Ju-chun said the goal was "diversified satellite services," adding that Taiwan should be able to connect to any satellite constellation to ensure its safety and national security.

Taiwan has already seen the consequences of severed connectivity. In February 2023, two telecoms lines serving the outlying Matsu archipelago were cut, disrupting communications for weeks. Some in Taiwan remain wary of over-reliance on Starlink after Musk admitted blocking a Ukrainian attack on Russian warships by turning off internet access, and his business ties with China and past comments that Taiwan should become part of China have angered the island.

DPP lawmaker Lin Chun-hsien said the amendments would "equip the government with the tools to introduce greater communications backup capacity, provided that national security requirements are fully met." Huang said the government would need agreements with Starlink to ensure its services kept operating "during disasters or emergencies."

It remains unclear whether Starlink will be interested. Cathy Fang, a policy analyst at the government-backed Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology, said operators would still need to address spectrum access, ground infrastructure, terminal deployment, cybersecurity, data-governance requirements, market size and commercial viability. "The amendment would remove a major legal obstacle, but the final decision would remain a commercial judgment for SpaceX," she said. Digital Affairs Minister Lin Yi-jing said Monday that Starlink had previously indicated its interest in the Taiwan market was "not particularly high," noting the island's 4G and 5G population coverage already exceeds 99.9 percent, leaving "limited commercial potential."

Chunghwa Telecom chairman Alex Chien said Tuesday the company was open to becoming Starlink's "exclusive agent" or forming a joint venture. "We're not ruling anything out. It depends on the other party," he said. The third reading of the amendments is expected as early as Friday.