Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) said yesterday that career soldiers would completely replace conscripts by the end of 2014.
Chen told the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee that the process would begin in 2011, while 10 percent of career soldiers would fill up the vacancies left by those who have completed compulsory military service.
All vacancies will be completely filled by the end of 2014 by following the plan.
Chen said more details of the schedule would be proposed to the legislature for review in June.
Individuals wishing to join the military would need high school education at minimum, Chen said.
In addition, people scheduled for their one-year compulsory military service would only have to go through a four-month military boot camp, he said.
Meanwhile, a Defense Ministry official said yesterday that Taiwan was working on creating a think tank to coordinate contacts with the Chinese military.
The official’s comments followed last week’s assertion by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) that Beijing was ready to hold talks with Taiwan on political and military issues aimed at ending hostility between the two sides.
The official said the purpose of the new liaison organization would be to build mutual trust with the Chinese military “on a step by step basis.”
He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
“We want to establish a think tank to reduce the unsafe factors in relations between the sides,” he said, without elaborating.
Meanwhile, Kyodo News Agency reported yesterday that the defense ministry had earmarked an initial US$230 million to buy 60 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from the US amid fresh indications the US Congress will likely approve the deal.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AP
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods