A senior Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker on Monday said that the nation needs to extend its mandatory military service, while raising the possibility that conscription could eventually be expanded to include women.
DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), who heads the party’s International Affairs Department, made the comments during a public discussion hosted by the Institute for National Policy Research with his counterpart from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Alexander Huang (黃介正), on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its lessons for Taiwan.
When asked about the nation’s military service system, Lo said that he believed a mainly volunteer force, with conscripts serving in a supporting role, remained the most suitable model for Taiwan.
“Still, moderately extending the mandatory service period is necessary,” he said, adding that one year of mandatory service, rather than four months, would be “easier to arrange” in terms of young people’s education and professional plans.
Lo also raised the possibility of expanding male-only conscription to include women, which he said would require a legal amendment, rather than constitutional reform.
While women already make up a significant portion of the armed forces, making females undergo mandatory conscription is something that would require more discussion and consensus, he said.
Huang expressed his openness to the idea of a longer conscription period, but said that the government needed to communicate with the public before making a decision.
While Lo and Huang both expressed sympathy for Ukraine, they drew different conclusions about what Taiwan should learn from the ongoing conflict.
“As the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues, China will understand that a war with Taiwan would be riskier than it expected, but Taiwan also has to show that it has the will to defend itself, as Ukraine has, for the international community to be able to help,” Lo said.
Huang said he worries that Ukraine would ultimately have to sign a ceasefire agreement that would leave it worse off than before the war.
“That would be a big blow for many Taiwanese” as well, he said.
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