A group of ruling DPP lawmakers yesterday questioned the wisdom of an experimental all-volunteer recruitment program proposed by the Ministry of National Defense (MND) for the next fiscal year.
The MND has appropriated NT$1.29 billion in its fiscal year 2003 budget plan for recruiting volunteers to staff three selected units in the armed forces -- an armored infantry battalion, a marine infantry battalion and an air force guard battalion.
Members of the DPP's legislative defense policy research panel said that, as the three units do not really require high levels of professional skills and expertise, they can be manned by conscripts.
"At a time when the government faces a shortfall of funds, is it appropriate for the MND to waste money on such an experimental program?" Legislator Lee Wen-chung (李文忠) asked at a news conference.
In his view, Lee said, the MND should instead set up new units that truly require sophisticated professional technologies, such as an electronic warfare unit, a battlefield management unit and a special warfare unit.
"The MND can recruit both volunteers and conscripts to man those special professional units in the initial stage," Lee suggested, adding that if the MND fails to give a good reason for going through with its all-volunteer program -- or fails to make suitable adjustments -- he will push for a cut in the experimental program's budget.
Another member of the DPP panel, Legislator Kuo Jung-chung (郭榮宗), said the MND should cash in on the trend that more young people are willing to enter into military academies to enhance professionalism in the armed forces.
"While experimenting with an all-volunteer recruitment system, the MND should give top priority to professionalism. Otherwise, the experimental program will be meaningless," Kuo noted.
Meanwhile, Legislator Tang Hou-sheng (湯火聖) expressed disappointment at the continued increases in personnel spending in the MND budget.
Noting that personnel fees account for 55.79 percent of the MND's NT$261.5 billion for the coming year, Tang said the figure indicates that the military's budget structure has not been planned in line with the government's 10-year troops reduction plan aimed at building up an elite deterrent force.
"We'll invite the relevant MND officials to deliver a report to the Legislature's defense committee on the military's personnel trimming plan, personnel deployment and future budget planning," Tang said.
More worrisome is that the MND's spending on weaponry procurement and defense technology research has continued to decline, Tang said, adding that weapon and military equipment procurement accounts for only 21 percent of the MND's 2003 budget, down from this year's level.
He also questioned the value of the MND's NT$6.16 billion budget plan for purchasing LVT-7 amphibious armored landing tanks.
"I think the military should better use its financial resources on improving its capabilities to counter China's asymmetric and unlimited warfare strategies as well as its combined services combat capabilities," he asserted.
According to the DPP legislative panel's study, Tang said, the planned procurement of US-built Kidd-class destroyers can largely upgrade the Taiwan Navy's combat capabilities. "We hope the MND will offer more information to help the general public better understand the necessity of buying these new warships."
The US has agreed to sell four Kidd-class destroyers to Taiwan, but some opposition lawmakers remain reluctant to endorse the MND's budget plan for the procurement.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS