Sun, Jul 28, 2002 page8

• Editorial: Military service can't be bought off

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  An explosive proposal to have conscripts pay a "national defense tax" instead of doing their mandatory military service has been greeted with polarized and divergent responses in Taiwan. While an implementation of the proposal will probably help raise funds the Ministry of National Defense badly needs for the incremental shift toward a professional military force, the moral hurdle that it must first overcome is simply too paramount. After all, the proposal cannot escape skepticism about blatant discrimination against the poor.

  Amidst all the problems confronting the nation's national defense, the quality of the armed forces has come under increasing scrutiny and attack. As indicated by a White Paper recently released by the ministry, and the list of arms being sold to Taiwan by the US, among many other objective factors, an army that is highly mobile, easy to maneuver and well-trained for high-tech and information warfare is what Taiwan needs. Since Taiwan can never match up to China in size, it might as well seek to surpass the Chinese army in those fields.

  As a professional volunteer force would seem much better suited to produce an army of this quality, proposals have been made to make gradual shifts from the current system, under which servicemen are mostly conscripts doing their two-year mandatory service, to the new proposed system. In fact, the ministry's latest White Paper indicates that, in future, the percentage of conscripts in the military will be reduced to 40 percent. The figure is expected to further decrease in the years to come.

  But, the question is "where is the money?" The truth of the matter is, the government is having problems coming up with the money to purchase the badly needed arms from the US as it is. Quality professional recruits do not come cheap, in particular in a culture where a career in the armed forces is not well-respected. This is not to mention the valuable but costly training that the nation's servicemen need to be put through, irrespective of whether they are conscripts or volunteers, in order to fully modernize the army.

  Currently, two types of "national defense tax" are being studied. Under a system of "offset national defense tax (折抵國防捐)," each conscript will have to go through a six-month training before he may "offset" the remaining 16 months of military service through payment of the said tax. Under a system of "universal national defense tax (全民國防捐)," any conscript who pays the tax will not have to serve a day of military service.

  DPP lawmaker Li Wen-chung (李文忠), an advocate of the system, has indicated that the amount of "national defense tax" per each month of military service that a conscript would otherwise have to serve should be between NT5,000 and NT$8,000. That is a lot of money. It is not hard to imagine at all that many young people from poor families and fresh out of school won't be able to afford it.

  Some have pointed out that other countries have collected a "national defense tax," including China. But, the problem is, in China, people are not allowed to offset military service with payment of these taxes. Instead, such taxes are collected to subsidize retirement pensions for veterans or salaries for servicemen. This kind of arrangement does not pose the problems of the systems being proposed here -- only those who can pay get to escape military service.

  Serving in the military is a constitutionally imposed duty on the men of this country. That duty can only be either uniformly performed or uniformly removed. Financial prowess should not play a role at all.
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