President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is seeking to finalize a plan to extend conscription at meetings with senior officials next week, Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) said on Wednesday.
The statement came after Tsai wrote on social media that she would next week begin holding meetings on the economy and national security.
Chang said the plan would also seek to bolster military training and boost Taiwan’s defensive capabilities.
Photo: CNA
Conscripts play a supporting role in the military, with 160,000 of the about 215,000 troops being volunteers.
As of last year, women, who are exempted from the draft, but can serve voluntarily, made up 15 percent of Taiwan’s military personnel.
The government is reportedly planning to extend conscription for men aged 18 or older to one year from four months, as the nation faces growing threats from China.
China’s military harassment of Taiwan has intensified over the past few years, and Beijing has sent military planes and ships toward the nation on a near-daily basis.
Beijing yesterday sent 39 planes, including a reconnaissance drone, and three ships near Taiwan in a 24-hour display of force, the Ministry of National Defense said, adding that 29 of the aircraft entered the nation’s air defense identification zone.
From 6am on Wednesday to 6am yesterday, 30 planes crossed the median of the Taiwan Strait, it said.
The planes flew to the nation’s southwest and then horizontally to the southeastern coast before turning back, flight patterns provided by the government showed.
Among them were 21 J-16 fighter jets, four H-6 bombers, four Xian H-6 bombers, one Z-9 anti-submarine warfare helicopter, one Y-20 aerial refueling aircraft and two KJ-500 early-warning aircraft, the government said, identifying the drone as a CASC Rainbow CH-4.
The government said it monitored the Chinese moves through its land-based missile systems.
Taiwan also dispatched combat air patrol aircraft and navy vessels in response to the incursions, it said.
China’s latest incursions came after Beijing in August held large military exercises encircling the nation after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan early that month. In its largest military exercises aimed at Taiwan in decades, China fired missiles over Taiwan proper, sparking a diplomatic protest from Tokyo, as some of the missiles fell into Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
In her social media post, Tsai also touched on the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) heavy defeats in the local government elections on Nov. 26.
Tsai stepped down as DPP chairperson after the party’s candidates won only five of the 22 mayoral and county commissioner elections last month.
Describing the outcomes of the elections as a “warning sign” to her administration, Tsai pledged to do more for those negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the rising cost of living and economic volatility.
Additional reporting by AP
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS