President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday inspected the fourth day of the first female voluntary reservist training program at a military camp in Taoyuan’s Yangmei District (楊梅), expressing hope that more retired female military personnel would attend reservist training to demonstrate the nation’s resolve to defend itself.
The president, accompanied by National Security Council Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) and Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正), watched a shooting exercise and listened to a briefing.
Tsai also handed out cash rewards to the reservists who voluntarily signed up for a refresher program.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
Fourteen female volunteer reservists enrolled in the refresher program for women that started on Monday at a “strategic location” in Taoyuan’s Bade District (八德).
The reservists have since undergone a chemical warfare simulation, and completed a 5km march and target training.
Tsai said that some of the reservists took time off work to participate in the training, while others left their children at home, describing these as concrete actions to protect the country.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The purpose of reservist training programs is to familiarize trainees with a range of wartime scenarios, and practice the military principle of being able to “mobilize and be combat-ready anytime, anywhere,” she said.
Mobilization not only improves the reserve forces, but also logistical work, Tsai said.
Tsai said the Ministry of National Defense must make adjustments and improvements to female reserve programs, expressing hope that more retired female members of the armed forces would join the programs.
“Taiwan is on the front line defending democracy, and [Taiwanese] regardless of gender must be united and demonstrate to the world our resolve to defend our country,” Tsai said.
She thanked the reservists who took part in the training and their families, saying that she hopes that when the program ends today, they would have each learned something.
Taiwan’s dual-track reservist training program consists of a five to seven-day program and a 14-day program, with 96,000 reservists needed for the first, and trainees for the second one to be raised from 15,000 to 22,000 this year.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
RSS