Former American Institute in Taiwan director William Stanton on Friday spoke out against the government’s all-volunteer military recruitment system and called on Taiwan to do more to diversify its trade and lessen its economic reliance on China.
An all-volunteer military is a “bad idea” for Taiwan and the belief that a cheap army could increase the military’s budget is a “fallacy,” Stanton said at a forum on Taiwan-US-China relations hosted by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Jason Hsu (許毓仁).
Citing the US military as an example, Stanton said that having an all-volunteer military could end up costing the government more, as it would have to provide families of soldiers with housing and education.
Furthermore, all Taiwanese have a responsibility to participate in national defense, as they should have a stake in what happens in their nation, he said.
Taiwan should look to Switzerland and Israel when implementing its military recruitment plans, he said.
Switzerland faces no existential threat, but has an air force and a large reserve force in which men and women practice with rifles and are ready to fight, he said.
Every Israeli is trained to fight, Stanton said, adding that Israel is a “terrific” model, because it is surrounded by enemies.
“You don’t have to be a military nation, but I believe everyone should have the fundamentals, and the reserve force should be a serious reserve force,” he said.
Taiwan also needs to diversify its trade to lessen its economic dependence on China, where 40 percent of its exports go, he said.
While the Democratic Progressive Party has implemented the New Southbound Policy to boost trade with Asian, Southeast Asian and Oceanic countries, it should set its sights on more areas, he said.
“Taiwan has so much to offer,” he said. “Let’s remember that China became economically strong in the first place because so many Taiwanese and other overseas Chinese went to the People’s Republic of China and provided huge amounts of investment money, business know-how and technology, and built factories.”
“It was easy to do, but you helped create the Chinese economic miracle, which now, in a sense, threatens you all,” he said.
The US has since 1971 implemented a string of erroneous policies on its relations and trade with China, one of which was that the US “ignored and underestimated Taiwan,” he said.
“[There was] a lack of vision of the society Taiwan would become: prosperous, democratic, free and based on the rule of law. It was a total underestimation of the success that Taiwan would have, not only as a democracy, but also as an economy,” Stanton said.
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