President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) campaign promise to create an all-volunteer military within four to six years could be broken as the government is having financial difficulties, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said yesterday.
Citing “budget difficulties,” Wu told reporters after a meeting on the subject with Ministry of National Defense and Ministry of the Interior officials that there could be a delay in the plan to replace conscription with an all-volunteer military by 2015.
“We have not decided on which year to abolish conscription, as financial difficulties will make it difficult to sustain a professional military,” he said.
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Ma promised he would implement an all-volunteer military service within four to six years.
On Wednesday last week, Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) told the legislature that plans for a fully professional military had been postponed by a year, but added there would be no further delay.
GRADUAL PHASING OUT
Wu said the administration would maintain its plan to gradually phase out the conscription system and increase the percentage of voluntary military personnel as the country could only maintain its defense capabilities by recruiting high-quality personnel specialized in sophisticated weapons use in an environment where technology has changed the nature of war.
“We will not engage in an arms race with China, but to maintain our self-defense capabilities, we have to pursue the objective of a refined military. Despite the rapprochement in cross-strait relations, we can’t base our national security on China’s goodwill,” Wu said.
Part of the funds needed to support an all-volunteer armed service could be collected from the disposal of land and camps held by the military, but left idle for years, Wu said, adding that he had asked Vice Premier Sean Chen to study the possibility.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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