In many modern countries, the commander-in-chief is a civilian, rather than a soldier. Since they fall far behind a professional soldier when it comes to military knowledge and training, how should they lead the armed forces?
They do not direct military operations, of course, but set the country’s general direction, determine goals and lead the military and the general public in a cooperative effort toward national development. Looking at the issue from this perspective, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is clearly unqualified to be commander-in-chief.
After Ma came to power, he started to reduce the size of the military. Not only did the number of soldiers drop drastically, but the army’s overall combat capability also took a sharp turn for the worse. There are a lot of redundant staff in the military, and streamlining — a process that was started by the administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) — is a necessary reform.
However, by last year, the Ma administration had cut the number of soldiers to 210,000, from the 450,000 soldiers prior to the beginning of the streamlining in the late 1990s. In addition to the continued streamlining and reform during his terms in office, Ma has also initiated a volunteer military system and is planning to continue to push for a consolidation program to further cut the number of soldiers. This program is scheduled to be completed in 2019, by which time there is expected to be between 170,000 and 190,000 soldiers. These reductions also include high ranking officials at the Ministry of National Defense and the armed forces command.
The modern military focuses more on firepower than on manpower, and there is a trend toward replacing numbers with advanced weaponry. Reducing the number of soldiers and focusing on disarmament is the trend among countries at peace, but Ma’s reductions not only harm the army’s combat capabilities, but have resulted in the forced retirement of middle-aged officers, and made it more difficult for young officers to be hired.
Furthermore, the death of army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘) has damaged the volunteer system because no one is showing any interest in becoming a soldier. In particular, new training units are being reduced as training has been distorted as a result of Hung’s death. This has resulted in a shortage of new trainees and a discrepancy between combat capability and reorganization, which has had several negative consequences.
Worse still, Ma has been leaning heavily toward China since he came to power, and this has created confusion in the armed forces and a feeling that they do not know who and what they are fighting for. China still has thousands of missiles aimed at Taiwan, and in military training, it is still treated as an enemy that might launch an armed attack against Taiwan. However, officials in the Ma administration openly flirt with China and former officers that trained the army to fight the Chinese Communist Party are falling over each other to travel to China and participate in banquets and sing People’s Liberation Army songs. At the same time, Chinese tourists are swarming all over the place.
Who is our friend and who is our enemy?
The armed forces are deviating from the targets set by the commander-in-chief. No one should be surprised when preposterous events such as the one that is now being called “the Apache group tour” occur. If there is to be a thorough review of the turmoil in the armed forces, beginning from the bottom up is not going to do any good — the commander-in-chief himself is going to have to shoulder responsibility.
Taiwan has lost Trump. Or so a former State Department official and lobbyist would have us believe. Writing for online outlet Domino Theory in an article titled “How Taiwan lost Trump,” Christian Whiton provides a litany of reasons that the William Lai (賴清德) and Donald Trump administrations have supposedly fallen out — and it’s all Lai’s fault. Although many of Whiton’s claims are misleading or ill-informed, the article is helpfully, if unintentionally, revealing of a key aspect of the MAGA worldview. Whiton complains of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s “inability to understand and relate to the New Right in America.” Many
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month raised its travel alert for China’s Guangdong Province to Level 2 “Alert,” advising travelers to take enhanced precautions amid a chikungunya outbreak in the region. More than 8,000 cases have been reported in the province since June. Chikungunya is caused by the chikungunya virus and transmitted to humans through bites from infected mosquitoes, most commonly Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. These species thrive in warm, humid climates and are also major vectors for dengue, Zika and yellow fever. The disease is characterized by high fever and severe, often incapacitating joint pain.
In nature, there is a group of insects known as parasitoid wasps. Their reproductive process differs entirely from that of ordinary wasps — the female lays her eggs inside or on the bodies of other insects, and, once hatched, the larvae feed on the host’s body. The larvae do not kill the host insect immediately; instead, they carefully avoid vital organs, allowing the host to stay alive until the larvae are fully mature. That living reservoir strategy ensures a stable and fresh source of nutrients for the larvae as they grow. However, the host’s death becomes only a matter of time. The resemblance
Most countries are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with condemnations of militarism and imperialism, and commemoration of the global catastrophe wrought by the war. On the other hand, China is to hold a military parade. According to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, Beijing is conducting the military parade in Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3 to “mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.” However, during World War II, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had not yet been established. It
RSS