As a country that uses conscription, it would be a fair guess that Taiwan is one of the few nations where people know about and appreciate their troops.
Taiwanese have either served in the army, navy, air force or marine corps themselves, or had a father, son, brother or boyfriend in the military. Some conscripts have been lucky or unlucky enough, depending on your position, to serve in Kinmen and Matsu, the front line of the Cold War against Chinese aggression in the past.
Despite this familiarity or first-hand experience, the more people see and read about the military, the more confusing their impression of it becomes.
Just recently, people have seen Discovery Channel programs about Taiwan’s elite special forces, including the amphibious reconnaissance team (frogmen), underwater operations unit and army rangers. They have also seen news of the death of army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘), who died on July 4 — three days before he was to be discharged from the army — from heat exhaustion in an alleged torture case.
At the same time as feeling respect and awe toward the elite troops who go through hellish training to ensure Taiwan’s security, people were reminded in Hung’s case about the stiff and dysfunctional military bureaucracy, the severe culture and the numerous lives lost at its bases.
The military’s reaction in the Hung case perhaps reminded them about the instances of fraudulent documents and fake statistics when they served, and how the culture of the military is to cover up every mistake and stop information from leaking out to the non-military world.
In terms of transparent government, the military remains the last piece of uncharted territory. With its refusal to open a joint investigation with non-military prosecutors, the military has shown it is stuck in a time warp of two decades ago.
There are more conflicting impressions about the military to be found elsewhere.
Retired generals have talked about Taiwan’s military and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) military as “all Chinese troops.” Meanwhile, a military officer-turned-civil-servant was reported as telling incoming military recruits in Hualien County that “unification is inevitable.” However the Ministry of National Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Report lists the PRC as the “enemy” and the ministry calls for a larger defense budget to purchase weapons systems and fighter jets to close the gap in an increasingly imbalanced military state of affairs across the Taiwan Strait.
People see and hear of thousands of soldiers moving out in the middle of the night to help with disaster relief after major earthquakes and typhoons. And yet they also see how military officers defended their retirement pensions and year-end bonuses in the government’s pension reform plan harder than keeping confidential information away from the Chinese.
Why have almost 4,000 soldiers either died or been injured from 2002 to 2011, including more than 300 suicides, when Taiwan was not at war? If several reported suicide cases were suspected to have been the result of torture, inappropriate training or even murder, how many more soldiers met their fate from unknown or unidentified reasons?
None of this is good news for a military that is trying to transform itself into an all-volunteer force. It is facing exactly the same problem as its commander-in-chief, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九): a loss of credibility.
There is no shortcut to turn a boy into a man overnight. Everyone has to start from square one, going through bootcamp and on to other stages before becoming a real soldier. There is no shortcut for the military either. It too, must go through a “bootcamp” to rebuild its reputation one task at a time.
This is the only way Taiwanese will allow the military to win back their confidence and trust.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry