Legislators from both major political parties have voiced strong opposition to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) plan to trim military personnel down to about 170,000 over the next three years by shifting from a conscripted to a volunteer force.
Ma has been pushing for the program, known as Yong Ku (勇固), to achieve the goal of all-volunteer armed forces by the end of 2018 by offering increased pay and other incentives aimed at attracting Taiwanese to enlist and become career soldiers.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Chen-hsiang (陳鎮湘) said the government has halved Taiwan’s armed forces over the past decade, from about 450,000 in the latter part of the 1990s to a total of about 210,500 last year.
“Numerous military units were downsized, and jobs were cut. This is very worrying, because many officers were forced to retire. This dealt severe blows to morale,” Chen said at an event organized by the Taipei-based Society for Strategic Studies on Saturday, adding that there is resistance and dissent in the armed forces toward the downsizing project.
“These problems will worsen if Ma goes ahead with the plan. We might see the disintegration of our military’s operational and combat capabilities,” Chen said.
“I’m not trying to frighten our citizens, but it is a possibility that tanks are unable to move from army bases and warships are unable to sail from docks,” Chen added.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) had similar concerns.
“If Ma rams through the downsizing program, the military will be unable to adjust and integrate staff work assignments and postings. It will lead to deficiencies, and many units of the armed forces might even lack the personnel to manage and operate military hardware,” he said.
He said the plan had already had a negative impact on the military’s chain of command, and officer training programs had been severely compromised.
“Our procurement and upgrading of weapons in recent years has been insufficient and not meeting our national defense needs,” Tsai said.
Tsai and Chen, along with other legislators, proposed the postponement of the implementation of an all-volunteer military at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee meeting last week.
Responding to the concerns of legislators and other officials, Ma said he still intends to realize the goal of an all-volunteer force, ordering the military to make necessary adjustments.
“I look forward to seeing the Ministry of National Defense coordinating and carrying out upcoming military drills. These will enable the evaluation of the structure of our armed forces, and to check and see if there are sufficient soldiers and officers. Then adjustments can be made as necessary,” Ma said at the event on Saturday.
“The Yong Ku plan is within the overall framework of reforming Taiwan’s military. We aim to streamline and modernized our armed forces, reduced in scale, but improved in quality, while retaining their strong combat capabilities,” he said.
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,”
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
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit
RSS