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
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.
“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.