The Ministry of National Defense should rethink the military’s force structure and recruitment policy in light of the nation’s demographics and technological advances, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker and Control Yuan member said on Sunday.
The number of Taiwanese between the ages of 15 and 64 has been declining since 2015, the National Development Council said last year in its report Population Projection for the Republic of China (Taiwan): 2016-2065.
This age group, which totaled 171.1 million last year, would fall to 151.2 million in 2030, a projected decline of 11.4 percent, it said.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The restructuring of the armed forces is being conducted according to plans made before the move to an all-volunteer force and before the impact of new technology could be fully assessed, DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said.
“This is not a suggestion for the military to downsize, but the responsible agencies should investigate the national security impact of demographical changes. This should happen as soon as possible,” he said.
Armed forces personnel currently number 215,000, including 188,000 in field units, with volunteers accounting for 82.86 percent of personnel and 77 percent of company-grade officers in field units, while the 169,000 volunteers expected to serve next year would boost the figure to nearly 90 percent of personnel in field units, the ministry said.
However, Control Yuan member Bau Tzong-ho (包宗和) said the military has lowered recruitment standards to meet enlistment goals when it should have been paying as much attention to quality as quantity.
“As warfare becomes ever more technological, the demand for quality troops would only increase,” he said.
South Korea and Israel, which, like Taiwan, are under military threat from powerful neighbors, continue to utilize conscription with long terms of service, he said, adding that the adequacy of the size of the nation’s military reserve is “an open question.”
While he does not recommend a return to conscription, the government should evaluate the advantages of various recruitment systems and seriously consider making military service mandatory, he said.
“Most importantly, the military’s overall effectiveness should be strengthened via improving asymmetric warfare capabilities, fighting spirit, reserve reactivation, and elevating the soldier’s social status and military honor,” Bau said.
The ministry said the current size of the armed forces is sufficient for war and disaster relief, while the force structure is dictated by mission and capability.
“The military continues to use innovative and asymmetric ideas to guide the integration and distribution of resources across the three branches of service and the force structure to meet conditions of the future battlefield,” it said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching