The chief of the general staff of the armed forces should not be required to answer questions from legislators, as it would affect their authority in the military combat command system, defense experts said yesterday.
Chief of the General Staff Mei Chia-shu (梅家樹) is scheduled to attend a Foreign and National Defense Committee hearing at the legislature in Taipei today and tomorrow, making him the first chief of the general staff to be questioned by lawmakers since 1998.
Mei and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) are to answer questions about this year’s Han Kuang military exercises, which are to be held from July 22 to 26.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Unlike previous drills, in which troops were instructed to respond in scripted scenarios, the live-fire exercises this year would focus on testing the armed forces’ emergency response capabilities, particularly in a decentralized command structure and under updated rules of engagement.
Former chief of the general staff Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), an expert on asymmetric warfare, said that Mei should not be asked to brief and answer questions from lawmakers, as his predecessor, former premier Tang Fei (唐飛), did in 1998.
“Military policies and orders proceeded in two separate tracks in 1998, with orders all given by the chief of the general staff,” Lee told reporters at a news conference hosted by National Tsing Hua University’s Taipei School of Economics and Political Science.
“However, after the government in 2011 began implementing changes to the National Defense Act (國防法) and the Organization Act of the Ministry of National Defense (國防部組織法), military policies and orders are now the responsibility of the defense minister, who should answer questions from lawmakers,” Lee said.
The duty of the chief of the general staff is to make sure that troops can fight and win wars, because they would serve the president and military commanders during wartime, he said.
“The chief of the general staff should not confer with lawmakers, who do not necessarily have military backgrounds, on how to manage troops,” he said. “Irrational inquiries from lawmakers about military affairs could hurt their authority in the military combat command system, which would be bad for the country.”
Meanwhile, the foundation also released its 2023-2024 National Defense Assessment Report.
The government has since the 1990s significantly streamlined military operations and curbed the increase of military personnel through a series of reforms, but Taiwan’s number of military units, number of personnel and defense spending have increased in the past eight years, foundation chairman Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄) said.
“With the increased focus on bolstering combat capabilities of the reserves and the navy, the government has gradually reversed previous efforts to control the expansion of military units,” Huang said.
“We estimated that the number of military personnel could return to the level before the military reforms in a few years,” he said.
Military reforms once proceeded without other countries playing a role, but changes in military policies in the past eight years, particularly the restoration of the one year of compulsory military service for men, often showed clear footprints of foreign intervention, he said.
Foreign intervention in the nation’s military policies culminated during the second term of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Huang said, adding that it would become a burden that President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration must bear.
Former Ministry of National Defense specialist Liu Li-lun (劉立倫) said that Taiwan relied heavily on the appropriation of special budgets to procure defensive weapons in the past eight years.
However, there would be negative effects on the formulation of national defense strategies in the long term if the ministry does not budget sufficient funding for defense projects, Liu added.
The government also needs to control costs for military personnel, particularly with the one-year conscription term, to avoid crowding out funds for weaponry, which is vital to build modern military units, he said.
Not taking into account special defense budgets, costs for military personnel in the past eight years accounted for 43 to 48 percent of defense spending, higher than in China and the US, he said.
The foundation estimated that military personnel costs would increase by NT$16.8 billion (US$517.83 million) once the number of compulsory service personnel rises to 53,600 in 2029, he said.
“This does not include funding needed to train them to use modern weapons as pledged by the defense ministry, which simultaneously increases funds needed to maintain military operations,” Liu said. “Not much would be left for investment in military facilities.”
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