The military proposed to dissolve its Combined Logistics Command, Reserve Command and Military Police Command to reduce its personnel by 75,000 to gradually realize President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policy of transforming the military into an all-volunteer service.
Ma had said he wanted the military to implement a completely voluntary military service to replace the current compulsory service in four to six years, and also scale down military personnel to less than 200,000.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily reported yesterday that the military had decided to dissolve the three military units and only maintain the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.
The report said, however, that the proposal had met with criticism from officials who were likely to lose their jobs under the proposal.
The report said Chief of the General Staff General Huo Shou-yeh (霍守業) and Vice Minister of National Defense Lin Chen-yi (林鎮夷) had been busy communicating with various units over the proposed reduction of personnel.
The report said that the current 13,000 personnel of the Military Police Command would be reduced to less than 5,000 and be combined into the army.
Ministry spokeswoman Lisa Chih (池玉蘭) told the Taipei Times yesterday that “the military planned to complete the plans for a voluntary military service by the end of 2013, and to implement it in 2014.”
She said the military had not reached a conclusion on the reduction of military personnel as described in the report.
But she also said the Ministry of National Defense had received complaints and faced resistance over plans to downscale.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said yesterday that a downsizing of the military would have an impact on national defense, which was in accordance with Ma’s policy of weakening Taiwan’s defense to please China.
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