Opposition parties yesterday expressed support for President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) announcement that the government would return the conscription period to one year, but called for complementary measures.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus convener William Tseng (曾銘宗) said the party had proposed improving the quality and content of military service, as well as measures to give conscripts fair treatment, including a monthly wage of NT$26,400 (US$860) rather than the NT$26,307 proposed by the government.
Tseng urged the government to restore the sense of honor that comes with military service, for instance by changing Armed Forces Day on Sept. 3 to “Respect for the Armed Forces” day and making it a national holiday.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
The KMT caucus would also monitor whether the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus alters the wording in the Executive Yuan’s report on conscription from “take note” to “to be reviewed,” he added.
Such administrative orders usually take effect immediately, while agencies would receive a document informing them to “take note” of the order.
However, if the wording were changed to “to be reviewed,” the process would be changed, and the legislature would be involved in the debate over the issue, usually resulting in either a “yes” or “no” answer.
DPP caucus convener Lo Chi-cheng (羅致政) said that the new policy is not a simple extension of mandatory military service, but rather a move to introduce sweeping changes.
Annual government expenditure is expected to rise by NT$16 billion with the new policy, which should not pose a significant difficulty for the government, Lo said.
Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy president Chang Yu-meng (張育萌) said that the mandatory service period in Taiwan is shorter than other countries, but young people are now concerned about wasting a year of their life, rather than four months.
Chang called for student involvement in a discussion over the option to serve while attending university.
The New Power Party (NPP) caucus called on the Executive Yuan to clarify supporting measures and urged the legislature to launch deliberations.
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucus deputy convener Lai Hsiang-ling (賴香伶) said that all parties should support the decision, but added that the policy’s details should be clarified.
Highlighting the issue of self-harm within the military, Taiwan Citizen Participation Association director-general Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) called on the government to re-establish the Military Complaints Committee to handle such incidents.
Academics also called for further reforms, raising concern about training capacity.
Chieh Chung (揭仲), an associate research fellow at the National Policy Foundation, said the extension of the service period would help boost the nation’s reserve forces.
However, the forces already face a shortage of training capacity and a lack of military personnel to train conscripts, Chieh said.
“How do they expect to train the 600,000 to 700,000 conscripts who will undergo one year of mandatory military service starting in 2024?” he asked.
The Ministry of National Defense has said that it expects to establish five to 11 new brigades to train conscripts and reservists.
Assistant professor Lin Ying-yu (林穎佑) from Tamkang University’s Institute of Strategic Studies said the ministry needs to ensure that training is practical.
“If, after the extension, most conscripts do the same administrative jobs or tasks that conscripts used to do when the service period was longer, then it will be useless,” Lin said.
Asked to comment on what her administration would do to boost training capacity and the need for additional personnel, Tsai told reporters that her government has one year to make the necessary preparations.
“Next year will be a very busy year,” she said.
Meanwhile, China’s government-backed Voice of Strait radio station launched a cognitive warfare operation against Taiwan following the announcement, saying the policy was pushing Taiwan toward the brink of war.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led