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If Taiwan is to fend off an invasion by troops from the Chinese mainland it will need reluctant recruits to summon the patriotism that inspired older generations. Photo: TNS

Taiwan must fight stigma of military service if it’s to fend off invasion

  • Many young people on the island lack enthusiasm for military service
  • Taiwan’s active-duty military has shrunk to 165,000 from 275,000 three years ago
Taiwan
If Taiwan is to fend off an invasion by troops from the Chinese mainland it will need reluctant recruits like Roger Lin to summon the patriotism that inspired older generations but these days does not burn as passionately in the young.

The 21-year-old student regards his upcoming mandatory four-month military service as an unnecessary burden, even as complaints persist that such stints are too short to protect the island compared with the two to three years that previous generations served.

Weeks of flaring tensions between the mainland and Taiwan, which has been buzzed by dozens of PLA warplanes in a disquieting show of force, have not emboldened Lin or changed his mind. If mainland China and its much larger military decided to invade, the island’s devastation would be a fait accompli, he said, even with the outside chance the United States would come to Taiwan’s defence.

“The faster those four months pass, the better. It’s a waste of time,” Lin, swiping at his phone at a cafe on the campus of National Chengchi University in Taipei, said of his military service.

“I don’t think the US government will help us anyway. Whether they do or not, for us ordinary people, the outcome will be the same.”

Lin’s fatalism and indifference are somewhat expected among the young. But they come at a perilous moment. Fraught relations between Washington and Beijing are, more so than in any other flashpoint, raising the possibility of war in Taiwan, a self-governed island of 24 million people that Beijing regards as part of its territory.

The stakes for Washington are high. Losing Taiwan to mainland China would probably signal the end of US power in the Pacific, freeing China’s military to project its strength in the region and beyond to the detriment of US allies like Japan and South Korea.

Led by an increasingly emboldened President Xi Jinping, China’s military – the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – has in recent weeks flown sorties deeper into Taiwanese airspace and beefed up exercises aimed at invading.

The best hope for preventing a conflict that would probably draw in the US is Taiwan’s willingness and ability to deter Beijing’s aggression, experts said.

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But the Taiwanese government has struggled to instil the same sense of urgency found in other places with national service requirements such as South Korea, Israel and even Singapore, which face no immediate threats. A recent poll suggested the Taiwanese public was split on their willingness to repel an invasion even as the island remains overwhelmingly in favour of keeping free of Beijing.

Taiwan’s active-duty military has shrunk to 165,000 from 275,000 three years ago. The PLA numbers 2 million.

Under public pressure to move to an all-volunteer army, Taiwan began phasing out conscription in 2013. Better pay, housing and college scholarships offered by the armed services have not been enough to lure Taiwan’s youth, a shrinking population in a progressive society where negative attitudes toward the military have been shaped its past under martial law.

Taiwan’s active-duty military has shrunk to 165,000 from 275,000 three years ago. The PLA numbers 2 million. Photo: EPA-EFE

“Taiwan does not have that culture where you can go out in the street wearing your fatigues with pride,” said Huang Chung-ting, an assistant research fellow at the Institute for National Defence and Security Research in Taipei.

“Soldiers leave as soon as they’ve completed national service. That’s a big problem. A lot of people think a good man does not become a soldier.”

Lin Chen-feng, a 30-year-old salesman at an education start-up in Taipei, said he discounted the prospect of a military career after his national service.

“My friends and I didn’t consider the army a good choice because we felt like we would lose ambition and not be able to fit into the real world,” he said. “It’s shameful now, but we laughed at people who signed a deal to continue.”

That has enraged some of the territory’s veterans who accuse the young generation of blissful ignorance in a time existential threat.

“The young only like to criticise China with their keyboards, but won’t join the army to show their determination,” said James Huang, 47, a retired lieutenant colonel who served in the infantry and is now closely followed for his writing on defence.

“After a missile attack or bombing by the PLA, do they think they can still use the internet? People in Taiwan today are not prepared for war.”

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who opposes unification with the mainland, has been working to promote military service. In August, she proposed raising Taiwan’s defence budget to record levels and supported re-equipping the military with sea mines, drones and anti-ship missiles to stop an invading army. She is also trying to reform Taiwan’s reserve forces to better act as an insurgency.

Tsai’s moves coincide with a debate within US foreign policy circles over whether to revise its stance towards defending Taiwan. The existing policy, known as strategic ambiguity, leaves the mainland and Taiwan guessing if the American military will respond to an attack on the island. The approach is credited with maintaining the peaceful status quo since 1979, when Washington cut official ties with Taipei to launch diplomatic relations with Beijing.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has been working to promote military service. Photo: AFP

Now, leading voices – including the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass – are arguing that a more powerful and hawkish Beijing must be countered with an explicit warning of US force if it were to move against Taiwan.

“Such a policy would lower the chances of Chinese miscalculation, which is the likeliest catalyst for war in the Taiwan Strait,” he said in an article published in Foreign Affairs last month.

Some experts fear that could undermine Taiwan’s efforts to rebuild its military.

“I worry [it] would potentially confuse this work that Tsai is trying to do and allow people in Taiwan to say: ‘We don’t need to do this military spending. We don’t need to beef up our military because the US is coming to our aid’,” said Shelley Rigger, a Taiwan expert and political scientist at Davidson College in North Carolina.

The chances of conflict appear to be rising. Beijing has stoked nationalism to deflect attention from its slower economy. It has clashed with Indian forces along its border, muscled its way across the South China Sea and brushed off international condemnation over Hong Kong’s autonomy – all while training its quickly modernising military to invade Taiwan.

Washington has responded by strengthening ties with Taipei. It sent high-level cabinet secretaries to the island, approved another massive arms sale and built momentum towards a free-trade agreement with Taiwan, which is usually excluded from such deals because of its diplomatic isolation. But pressure from Beijing is growing.

“China is trying to change the status quo,” said Yisuo Tzeng, acting director of the Institute for National Defence and Security Research.

“Whether we can maintain the status quo, I’m not sure.”

It is also unclear whether the US can successfully defend Taiwan given deficiencies in American forces in the region and PLA weapons designed to thwart the US Navy’s aircraft carriers.

“We do not have sufficient capability to come to Taiwan’s defence without putting our forces at great risk,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

“In fact, it may lead the Chinese to conclude that they should strike Taiwan while they still have an advantage to do so.”

Taiwan seeks US help to boost its defences as Beijing ramps up military pressure

Such scenarios have not changed the minds of many young Taiwanese about joining the military. Lai Yen-cheng, a 21-year-old international relations major at National Taiwan University in Taipei, said the PLA drills and fly-bys were starting to unnerve him but a career in the military was out of the question.

“Soldiers get more respect in places such as America, but we still don’t have that climate in Taiwan,” said Lai, who has yet to complete his four-month required military service.

“Military camp culture isn’t that strong and our sense of patriotism isn’t as keen.”

His reluctance is partly due to the fact he and many other young Taiwanese do not believe Beijing will ever strike. Only if the island were actually invaded would Lai volunteer to fight, with or without the US, he said.

“If the United States takes more substantive action to help Taiwan, people would feel safer, but we can’t just rely on another country,” he said. “America is a sovereign nation and has their own considerations.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Young in no mood to join up despite Beijing threat
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