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Taiwan
ChinaMilitary

Taiwan’s shrinking active-duty troop numbers a ‘worry’ as PLA threats intensify

Number of active volunteer soldiers, seen as central to Taiwan’s combat readiness, expected to drop for the second straight year in 2025

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Taiwanese leader William Lai, who has proposed a 6 per cent increase in the defence budget, watches a missile launcher demonstration at an army base in Taiwan’s Penghu county on Friday. Photo: EPA-EFE
Hayley Wongin Beijing
The shrinking of Taiwan’s active-duty troop numbers is “worrisome”, observers have said, highlighting the impact on war preparedness as cross-strait threats intensify.

According to Taiwanese media reports citing a defence ministry submission to the legislature, the number of active volunteer soldiers in Taiwan is expected to drop to about 160,800 next year, sustaining a 3 per cent decrease from 2023.

Analysts blamed the projected decline on the waning pull of military jobs amid Beijing’s growing grey zone tactics.
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Taiwan, whose armed forces are made up of voluntary troops and all-male reservists, had once sought to transition to an all-volunteer military system. It gradually reduced the compulsory service period in the 2000s, from two years to one, and then to four months in 2013.

However, that transition has been reversed amid growing military pressure from mainland China and a shrinking armed force, with the one-year conscription period reinstated in January.
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Announcing the plan in December 2022, the island’s then leader Tsai Ing-wen said war preparedness had to be stepped up as mainland China’s “attempts to coerce Taiwan have become clearer”.

But voluntary troops, with their longer and more sophisticated training, are still considered central to Taiwan’s combat readiness.

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