According to reports, on Monday, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, said that if elected president, he would return the compulsory military service period to four months.
I am disappointed with the younger generation who find the prospect of military service so distasteful. Is making a commitment for a whole year such a terrible thing to ask? Does it really take courage to do so?
To be honest, four months of conscription is a waste of young people’s time, because they still would not be able to hold a gun correctly by the end of their time in the army. They might as well have not bothered to go at all.
Given that Taiwanese get to enjoy the benefits the state provides, it is only right that those eligible for military service do their duty. The government reinstated mandatory military service to one year only after careful consideration, due to the increase in cross-strait tensions and the necessity of developing all-out defense. The skills a soldier needs to cultivate, from the experience of live ammunition training and familiarity of combat skills to the required knowledge, concepts and mental toughness to fight in a war do not develop overnight.
With necessity comes opportunity. Meaningful military service provides a great opportunity for young people to train their physical strength, even though the training might become more arduous due to its extension to a full year. Strong of body and strong of mind, make the person more mature, tolerant, patient and determined. Furthermore, having a strong body can be a real asset when looking for a job later on.
It is common knowledge how time spent in the armed forces can test, hone and bring out a young person’s character. It is ridiculous that many politicians are trying to curry favor with young people to get their votes while at the same time robbing them of self-growth opportunities to fulfill their potential.
Today, I still sit around with my friends remembering the old times, talking about our unforgettable experiences in the military. As the saying goes, “I would not serve in the army again, not if you paid me a million dollars; but I would not want to lose those memories, either, not even for a million dollars.” If young people go into military service with the right attitude, it can be a life-changing experience for them.
Dino Wei is an information engineer in Yilan County.
Translated by Polly Chiu
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
When it became clear that the world was entering a new era with a radical change in the US’ global stance in US President Donald Trump’s second term, many in Taiwan were concerned about what this meant for the nation’s defense against China. Instability and disruption are dangerous. Chaos introduces unknowns. There was a sense that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might have a point with its tendency not to trust the US. The world order is certainly changing, but concerns about the implications for Taiwan of this disruption left many blind to how the same forces might also weaken
As the new year dawns, Taiwan faces a range of external uncertainties that could impact the safety and prosperity of its people and reverberate in its politics. Here are a few key questions that could spill over into Taiwan in the year ahead. WILL THE AI BUBBLE POP? The global AI boom supported Taiwan’s significant economic expansion in 2025. Taiwan’s economy grew over 7 percent and set records for exports, imports, and trade surplus. There is a brewing debate among investors about whether the AI boom will carry forward into 2026. Skeptics warn that AI-led global equity markets are overvalued and overleveraged
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
RSS