Stricter criteria for physical fitness will apply to ranking officers starting next year, the Army said yesterday.
"Whoever fails to meet standards will face potential administrative punishment -- and the punishment will affect her or his promotion," said Lieutenant-General Chou Yen-chung (周彥中), spokesman for the Army.
Those who fail the tests will also be asked to attend an intensive physical training camp until they have made satisfactory progress, he said.
"We hope these high-ranking officers will follow [physical fitness standards] themselves while they are requiring stricter physical training for their soldiers," Chou said.
The stricter physical fitness requirements will apply mainly to colonel-class and general-class officers, Chou said.
For majors and lieutenants-colonel, a test will be carried out every three months.
Colonels will face testing every six months and generals will be tested every year.
New physical fitness standards for higher-ranking officers have yet to be decided.
In related news, last Friday, 86 officers, including seven female officers, graduated from the Army Infantry School's "intensive physical training program" and became physical training instructors for Army units.
"Since the intensive program was established in 1969, more than 20,000 physical instructors have been recruited, and the number is still growing," said Lieutenant-General Liu Hung-ming (
"Almost every company has an officer who graduated from the program, but it is our goal that in the future every platoon will have one," Liu said.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
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